BX    9i 

Hedgi 

189i 

Reas( 

841  .H42  1867 

e,  Frederic  Henry,  1805 

0. 

on  in  religion 


V'  i. 


%r  n 


REASON    IN    RELIGION. 


BY 


FREDERIC  HENRY  HEDGE. 


"KErtTE  VERTBAUTKRE  GABE  VEKMAO  DER  MENSCH  DEM  MENSCHEN 
ANZUBIETEN  AXS  "WAS  EB  IM  INNEBSTEN  DES  GEMUTHES  ZU  8ICH  SELBST 
GEREDET   HIT." 

Schleiermacher, 


BOSTON: 
WILLIAM  V.   SPENCER. 

18G7. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1865,  by 

WALKER,   FULLER,   AND   COMPANY, 

In  the  Clerk's  OfiSce  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


FOURTH    EDITION. 


CAMB  RIDGE: 
BTEBKOTYPKD  AND  PRINTED  BY  JOHN  WILSON  AND  SOW. 


i! 


I 


•A.  aI  E  0  L  0  G I  C  ^"v  A i  jf 


CONTENTS. 


INTRODUCTORY. 
Chapter. 

I.    Being  and  Seeing 

n.    "Natural  and  Spikitual" 21 


Page. 
3 


i00h  Jfxrsi. 


RELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS   OF  THEISM. 


Chaptee. 

I.  The  Retreating  God 

n.  The  Advancing  God 

HI  The  Regent  God      . 

IV.  The  Answering  God 

V.  The  Exorable  God 

VI.  The  Old  Enigma 

Vn.  The  Old  Discord 

VIII.  The  Old  Fear.     . 

IX.  The  Old  Hope.    . 

X.  Freedom  est  Bonds 


Page. 

35 

53 

71 

85 

99 

113 

129 

145 

163 

181 


[iii] 


iv  CONTENTS. 


i00h  S^mnir, 


RATIONAL     CHRISTIANITY. 

Chapter.  Page. 

Preliminary.  —  The    Cause    of    Reason    the 

Cause  of  Faith 197 

I.      CULRONATION     OF     PERSONALITY    IN     THE     ChRIST 

OF  THE  Church 227 

n.    Limitation  op  Personality  in  the  Christ  of 

Reason 247 

ni.    Miracles 263 

rV.    The  Revelation  of  the  Spirit 283 

V.    The  Spirit  in  the  Letter 301 

VL     Saving  Faith 317 

\JL.    The  Age  of  Grace;   or,  Atonement  without 

Expiation 333 

Vm.    The  '* Double  Predestination'' 349 

IX.    The  Christian  Idea  of  Immortauty    ....  369 

X.     Critique  of  Penal  Theology 387 

XL    The  Two  Types 421 

Xn.    The  Moral  Ideal 441 


REASON    IN    RELIGION. 


I. 
BEING    AND    SEEING. 


INTRODUCTORY. 


BEING  AND  SEEING. 

Philosophy  has  observed  that  human  consciousness  is 
most  distinct  on  the  surface  of  Hfe,  and  grows  dim  and 
confused  as  it  reaches  toward  the  interior.  The  reason 
alleged  is,  that  individuality,  the  subject  of  conscious- 
ness, is  merely  phenomenal ;  and  that,  where  the  phe- 
nomenal ceases,  individual  existence  is  merged  in  the 
universal  life. 

The  fact  is  certain,  the  explanation  questionable.  I 
rather  believe  that  individuality  is  real  and  radical, 
and  that  the  limitation  of  consciousness  on  the  inner 
side  is  due  to  the  fact,  that  consciousness  depends  on 
external  impressions :  its  condition  is  re-action  on  a 
world  without ;  it  is  the  differentiation  of  self  from  all 
beside,  and  therefore  loses  its  distinctness  in  propor- 
tion as  all  beside  is  withdrawn;  that  is,  toward  the 
interior  of  our  beino;. 

There  is,  in  all  men,  something  deeper  than  them- 
selves,—  than  the  conscious  self  of  their  experience. 
It  is  the  elder,  aboriginal  self,  which  no  consciousness 
can   grasp.     Who  remembers  the  time  when  first  he 

[31 


4:  INTEODUCTORY. 

began  to  say  "I,"  and  found  himself  a  conscioud  unit, 
distinct  from  all  others  ?  If  we  attempt  to  trace  the 
history  of  the  soul,  its  beginning  is  lost  in  a  period  of 
blank  unconsciousness,  beyond  all  scrutiny  of  memory 
or  imagination.  Blind  mystery  envelops  our  origin, 
as  it  does  our  end.  No  man  quite  possesses  himself. 
The  self  which  he  seems  to  possess  is  growth  from  a 
root  which  bears  him,  not  he  it. 

Springing  from  this  unknown  root,  our  being  carries 
an  unknown  factor  which  modifies  all  its  action.  Our 
thinking,  as  well  as  our  doing,  obeys  its  influence.  It 
is  written,  "As  a  man  thinketh,  so  is  he."  We  may 
reverse  the  proposition,  and  say  with  equal  truth,  "  As 
a  man  is,  so  he  thinketh."  His  thinking  is  the  product 
of  his  being;  consequently,  the  gauge  and  exponent  of 
his  being.  It  is  his  being  translated  into  thought,  — 
his  being  intellectually  expressed.  According  as  he  is 
wise  or  foolish,  his  opinions  will  be  true  or  false  :  they 
will  be  right  or  wrong  according  as  he  is  good  or 
evil. 

The  character  in  relisrion  determines  the  creed. 
Character  has  been  defined  "the  educated  will."  But 
the  will  —  the  conscious,  personal  will  —  is  not  the 
only  factor  in  this  product :  there  is  something  in  it  of 
the  radical  self.  And  something  of  the  radical  self 
there  is  in  every  creed  which  is  genuine,  and  not  mere 
subscription  to  the  placita  of  a  Church.  The  true 
creed  of  a  man  is  his  character  confessed. 

Or  does  any  one  suppose  that  belief  is  independent 
of  character  ?  —  that  a  man  can  be  one  thing,  and  think 
another?     We  sometimes  talk  as  if  truth  were  a  secre- 


BEING   AND   SEEING.  D 

tion  of  the  brain,  entirely  unaffected  by  moral  condi- 
tions ;  as  if  one  could  lay  hold  of  spiritual  truth,  without 
spiritual  insight,  by  mere  dint  of  logic  :  or  as  if  spir- 
itual insight  were  the  product  of  some  organic  arrange- 
ment, mechanical  in  its  operation ^^  and  quite  as  likely 
to  o'o  rio;ht  with  a  vicious  character  as  with  a  riohteous 
one ;  just  as  a  watch  may  keep  equally  good  time 
whether  worn  by  a  sinner  or  a  saint. 

This  I  believe  to  be  a  very  false  view  of  the  action 
of  the  mind  in  this  relation.  The  intellect  is  nothing 
distinct  from  man.  It  is  man  himself  in  one  of  his 
functions.  As  the  man,  so  the  function,  so  the  product 
of  that  function.      As  he  is,  so  he  thinketh. 

I  say  nothing  of  positive  science.  I  do  not  deny 
that  one  who  is  morally  depraved  may  be  a  good 
mathematician  or  a  good  physiologist.  These  are 
regions  of  truth  beyond  the  jurisdiction  of  religion,  and 
independent  of  moral  conditions  ;  excepting  always  the 
oeneral  influence  which  character  has  on  all  the  action 
of  the  mind.  I  am  speaking  of  truth  in  morals  and 
religion,  when  I  say  that  the  character  determines  the 
belief.  Truth  of  spirit  is  essential  to  the  right  appre- 
hension of  spiritual  truth.  To  know  the  truth,  it  is 
necessary  to  will  the  truth,  and  to  he  the  truth. 

This  connection  between  being  and  seeing  implies 
two  things  :  1st,  A  perverted  nature  cannot  see  the 
truth  ;  2d,  A  (morally)  sound  nature,  seeking  without 
bias,  will  see  the  truth. 

1st,  A  perverted  nature  cannot  see  the  truth.  A 
man  must  be  in  harmony  with  it  by  moral  and  spiritual 
affinity,  in  order  to  apprehend  it.  There  are  facts  which 
seem  to  contradict  this  proposition.      It  is  notorious, 


6  INTEODUCTOEY. 

that  very  depraved  men  sometimes  profess  a  very  pure 
theology ;  at  least,  a  very  Orthodox  one  :  whereas,  ac- 
cording to  this  view,  they  ought  to  be  infidels  and 
atheists.  I  leave  out  of  question  the  hypocrisy  which 
consciously  and  deliberately  assumes  the  disguise  of 
religion  to  lull  suspicion  or  to  palliate  crime.  Such 
characters  are  not  very  common  in  our  day,  and  are 
wholly  foreign  from  our  theme.  I  speak  of  bad  men 
who  actually  receive,  or  think  they  receive,  the  religion 
they  profess. 

But,  observe,  there  is  a  wide  difference  between  re- 
ception and  conviction.  Various  degrees  of  persuasion 
are  comprehended  in  the  term  "  belief."  Most  of  them 
stop  short  of  genuine  conviction.  In  fact,  there  are 
few,  the  world  over,  who  can  be  said  to  have  positive 
convictions  in  religion,  if  we  understand  by  convictions 
the  results  of  personal  investigation  or  personal  intui- 
tion. The  religious  tenets  of  most  men  are  accidents  ; 
that  is,  they  are  impressions  derived  from  the  ecclesias- 
tical atmosphere  in  which  the  holders  of  them  happen 
to  live.  Or  they  are  social  conventions,  adopted  un- 
consciously, as  it  were  by  contagion.  Or  they  are 
traditions  inherited  by  education.  A  man  is  said  to 
"  believe "  a  doctrine  imbibed  in  this  way,  although  he 
has  never  come  into  real  mental  contact  with  it,  —  has 
never  subjected  it  to  the  action  of  his  own  mind,  — 
has  never  looked  it  fairly  in  the  face.  He  is  said  to 
beUeve  what  he  has  never  questioned.  The  fact  is 
precisely  the  reverse.  A  man  can  never  truly  believe 
what  he  has  not  at  some  time  questioned.  In  this 
sense  of  unquestioning  reception,  a  very  depraved  man 
may  hold  very  Orthodox  opinions.     Nay,  the  more  de- 


BEING  AND   SEEING.  7 

praved  he  is,  the  more  tenacious  of  such  opinions  he  is 
likely  to  be ;  the  more  zealous  in  defence  of  the  Ortho- 
doxy in  which  he  was  bred  ;  the  more  disposed  to  annex 
to  it  an  outlying  Orthodoxy  exceeding  that  in  which  he 
was  bred,  and  to  clothe  himself  in  extra  folds  of  rigor- 
ous doctrine ;  actuated,  it  would  seem,  by  the  notion 
that  a  rioforous  creed  atones  for  a  vicious  life.  For  the 
Protestant  world  inherits  from  the  Church  of  Rome 
the  idea,  that  God  is  pleased  with  Orthodoxy,  and  that 
every  article  which  a  man  adds  to  his  creed,  so  it  have 
the  sanction  of  the  Church,  is  a  step  toward  heaven. 

It  is  nothing  uncommon  for  very  unscrupulous  peo- 
ple—  tradesmen  of  doubtful  integrity,  intriguing  poli- 
ticians, unprincipled  men  in  public  life  and  in  private — 
to  maintain  with  earnestness  a  stringent  Orthodoxy. 
Not  from  hypocrisy,  not  with  any  intent  to  deceive ; 
but  partl}^  in  the  hope  of  being  justified  by  their  belief, 
and  partly  in  order  to  atone  to  themselves  for  conscious 
depravity.  They  would  balance  laxity  in  practice  with 
severity  in  doctrine,  and  thus  maintain  a  moral  equili- 
brium in  their  life.  It  is  the  same  principle  which  led 
the  gay  women  of  the  court  of  Louis  XIV.  to  become 
devotees  with  advancing  years  ;  putting  on  "  the  orna- 
ment of  a  meek  and  quiet  spirit"  as  outward  charms 
decayed,  and  replacing  the  varnished  attractions  of 
personal  beauty  with  the  still  available  "  beauty  of  holi- 
ness." It  is  the  same  principle  which  leads  worldly 
men  and  women,  in  later  time,  to  seek  refuge  in  the 
bosom  of  Romanism  and  to  expiate  a  reckless  life  by 
religious  austerity. 

In  such  cases,  there  is  no  genuine  conviction ;  no 
true  interior  knowledge,  but  mere  profession.     It  may 


8  INTRODUCTORY. 

be  sincere,  so  far  as  intention  goes,  but  based  on  no 
actual  personal  experience  of  the  truth.  Only  they 
have  sight  of  spiritual  verities,  who  arrive  at  them 
through  spiritual  experience.  Only  the  true  soul  can 
know  the  truth. 

2d,  A  sound  nature,  seeking  without  bias,  will  see 
the  truth. 

Here,  again,  we  encounter  a  fact  which  seems  to 
contradict  the  supposed  connection  between  the  intel- 
lectual and  the  moral  in  man,  between  character  and 
creed.  There  are  cases  of  men  of  pure  character 
and  blameless  life,  who  have  been  infidels  in  religion. 
If  it  be  true  that  the  character  determines  the  belief,  it 
would  seem  that  every  pure  and  honest  mind  must 
receive,  if  not  the  doctrine  of  the  gospel,  at  least  the 
essential  truths  of  universal  religion  ;  and  that  all  who 
reject  these  must  be  morally  depraved.  But  such  is 
not  the  fact.  At  least,  there  are  many  and  significant 
exceptions.  Epicurus,  the  arch-atheist  of  antiquity,  is 
said  to  have  lived  a  blameless  and  beneficent  life  at  the 
head  of  a  company  of  friends  who  professed  to  seek 
private  satisfaction  as  the  sure  and  only  good.  Spinoza, 
who  is  usually  regarded  as  the  arch-atheist  of  modern 
time,  is  allowed  by  his  bitter  opponent,  the  unscrupu- 
lous Bayle,  to  have  been  upright,  kind,  and  strictly 
moral ;  which,  says  he,  "  may  seem  strange,  but,  in 
reality,  ought  not  to  surprise  us  any  more  than  that 
men  who  believe  in  the  truth  of  the  gospel  should  lead 
an  irregular  life."  Hume,  the  inveterate  sceptic  of 
English  philosophy,  is  characterized  by  Adam  Smith  as 
generous,  charitable,  and  urbane.     Shelley,  the  zealous 


BEING  AKD   SEEING.  9 

antaofonist  of  Christian  Orthodoxy,  seems  to  have  been 
possessed  with  the  purest  spirit  of  Christian  love.  How 
shall  we  explain  such  cases,  in  which  it  would  appear 
that  pure  minds  and  sound  natures  had  no  perception 
of  the  truth? 

It  must  be  remembered,  that  what  we  know  of  these 
men,  for  the  most  part,  is  not  their  belief,  but  their 
negations.  We  see  that  they  reject  the  established  re- 
ligion as  a  whole ;  we  do  not  always  see  what  equiva- 
lent they  received  in  its  place.  But  we  know,  from  the 
nature  of  the  human  mind,  that  some  equivalent  they 
must  have  had  ;  some  secret  convictions  ;  some  spiritual 
insight ;  something  in  the  nature  of  religious  faith, 
however  imperfect  and  ill-defined.  For  man  is  not  so 
constituted  as  to  do  without  faith.  These  unbelievers 
have  been  repelled  by  some  apparent  absurdity,  or 
some  revolting  impiety,  in  the  popular  creed.  In  war- 
ring against  that,  by  a  natural  tendency  of  the  human 
mind,  they  have  been  led  to  reject  the  entire  system  of 
religious  belief  of  which  it  seemed  to  be  a  necessary 
part.  Or  perhaps  it  is  the  form  in  which  the  popular 
conception,  or  a  false  philosophy,  has  clothed  the  doc- 
trines of  religion,  that  they  reject ;  and,  rejecting  that, 
they  appear  to  reject  the  essential  truth  so  embodied. 
Be  this  as  it  may,  where  the  life  is  pure  it  is  so  through 
belief,  and  not  through  unbelief;  through  the  influence 
of  truth,  and  not  through  falsity  or  error.  If  the  life  of 
these  unbelievers  was  true,  some  true  perception  must 
have  sprung  from  it,  some  religious  conviction  must 
have  accompanied  it.  Is  there  a  reputed  atheist  whose 
heart  is  true  and  whose  life  is  righteous?  I  say  that 
man  believes  in  God,  in  a  spiritual  centre,  however  his 


10  INTRODUCTORY. 

conception  of  divine  wisdom  and  love  may  differ  from 
the  popular  conception,  or  the  theological  dogma  which 
bears  that  name.  He  believes  in  a  moral  law,  and  a 
necessary  and  everlasting  distinction  between  right  and 
wrong,  however  his  standard  of  moral  obligation  may 
clash,  in  some  particulars,  with  the  commonly  received 
ecclesiastical  code.  He  believes  in  an  Infinite  Good, 
in  eternal  spiritual  realities,  however  he  may  dissent 
from  the  popular  view  of  the  life  to  come. 

Hear  the  confession  of  one  who  was  counted  an 
atheist  in  his  time,  and  is  still  so  regarded  by  most 
theologians  :  "Experience  had  taught  me,"  says  Spinoza, 
"  that  all  which  life  commonly  offers  is  worthless  and 
vain.  I  therefore  determined  to  know  if  there  were 
any  genuine  good  which  might  be  attained,  and  with 
which  the  soul,  abandoning  every  thing  else,  might  be 
content  ;  the  discovery  and  appropriation  of  which 
would  yield  a  continual  and  supreme  satisfaction. 
That  which  mankind,  if  we  judge  from  their  actions, 
regard  as  the  highest  good,  is  either  wealth,  honor,  or 
sensual  enjoyment.  The  pleasure  derived  from  these  is 
delusive,  and  only  an  infinite  and  everlasting  good  can 
impart  pure  joy  to  the  soul.  Therefore  I  resolved  to 
collect  myself,  that  I  might  lay  hold  of  this  supreme 
good."  And  what  was  the  supreme  good  in  his  appre- 
hension? "The  supreme  good,"  he  continues,  "con- 
sists in  becoming  partaker  of  a  more  excellent  nature, 
and  in  realizing  the  intimate  relation  which  connects  the 
individual  soul  with  the  universe  of  things." 

And  so  this  remarkable  man,  a  Jew  by  birth,  but 
excommunicated  from  the  Jewish  synagogue  for  his 
opinions,  lived  a  life  of  strict  seclusion,  devoting  him- 


BEING  AND   SEEING.  11 

self  to  meditation  and  inquiry  concerning  the  deepest 
mystery  of  things,  refusing  kicrative  offices  which  were 
tendered  to  him,  and  maintaininof  his  fruo^al  existence 

'  CO 

by  mechanical  labor. 

Thus  we  see  that  the  nominal  unbeliever  may  cherish 
in  his  heart  a  sublime  faith  which  explains  the  moral 
anomaly  of  his  life.  But  we  deceive  ourselves,  if  we 
suppose  that  such  cases  are  frequent ;  and  that  even 
this  negative  purity  of  life  (for  usually  it  amounts  to 
nothing  more)  is  a  common  accompaniment  of  what  is 
called  infidelity.  Such  combinations  are  exceptions, 
not  the  rule.  If  we  search  for  the  saints  of  history,  — 
for  the  moral  heroes,  the  men  and  the  women  who  stand 
pre-eminent  in  moral  excellence,  choice  examples  of 
heroic  virtue,  —  we  find  them,  not  in  the  ranks  of  unbe- 
lief, but  among  the  disciples  and  among  the  confessors 
of  a  given  religion. 

If  speculative  unbelief  is  sometimes  associated  with 
purity  of  life,  practical  unbelief,  on  the  other  hand, 
is  inseparably  connected  with  moral  corruption.  By 
practical  unbelief,  I  mean  inward  aversion  ;  alienation 
of  the  heart  from  spiritual  truths  which,  however,  may 
not  be  contradicted  by  the  understanding,  and  which 
are  outwardly  acknowledged  by  formal  compliance  with 
the  uses  of  the  Church.  I  have  spoken  of  depraved 
men  who  seek  to  atone  for  their  vices  by  their  Or- 
thodoxy. There  are  men  who  are  not  depraved  in 
that  sense  of  the  term ;  who  are  guilty  of  no  misde- 
meanors ;  whose  life  is  regidar,  their  manners  irre- 
proachable ;  but  whose  hearts  are  selfish  and  filled 
with  vicious  affections,  —  envy,  hatred,  and  lust;  — 
there   are   such,   I  say,   who   formally   assent   to   the 


12  INTRODUCTORY. 

truths  of  religion;  who  never  entertained  a  speculative 
doubt ;  who  never  dreamed  of  questioning  the  creed  of 
their  communion  ;  who  deem  such  questioning  impious, 
and  burn  with  righteous  indignation  against  all  who  so 
question,  all  so-called  infidels  ;  but  who  no  more  be- 
lieve in  that  creed  with  a  genuine  appreciative  faith 
than  they  believe  in  Brahmanism.  Their  theological 
creed  is  one  thing ;  their  practical  belief,  another  and  a 
Tery  different  thing.  Ecclesiastically,  they  subscribe 
to  the  Athanasian  Creed,  or  the  Apostles'  Creed,  or  the 
Thirty-nine  Articles,  or  the  Westminster  Catechism ; 
but,  if  they  would  confess  the  secret  conviction  of  their 
hearts,  their  creed  would  be,  "I  believe  in  one  supreme 
and  all-sufficient  good,  —  the  good  of  riches,  the  good 
of  honor,  the  good  of  enjoyment.  These  three  are 
one  good ;  the  same  in  substance,  equal  in  value 
and  satisfaction.  I  believe  that  the  chief  end  of  man 
is  to  get  gain  and  lay  up  much  good  for  many 
years.  I  believe  that  religion  is  the  necessary  safe- 
guard of  life  and  property,  and  must  be  maintained 
v/ith.  strict  conformity  and  punctual  observance.  I 
believe  in  success.  I  believe  in  respectability.  I  be- 
lieve that  the  respectable  are  the  children  of  God  and 
shall  inherit  the  kingdom  prepared  for  them  from  the 
foundation  of  the  world ;  but  the  needy  and  the  vaga- 
bond, the  profane  rabble,  shall  be  cast  into  outer  dark- 
ness, where  there  is  wailing  and  gnashing  of  teeth." 

It  is  commonly  supposed,  that  the  understanding  is 
competent,  in  and  of  itself,  with  no  aid  but  its  own 
inductions,  and  no  method  but  its  own  law,  to  discover 
and  establish  the  truths  of  religion.     This  supposition 


BEING   AND    SEEING.  13 

is  contradicted  by  the  history  both  of  science  and  re- 
ligion. The  understanding  possesses  no  such  capacity ; 
otherwise,  the  truths  of  religion  would  lonof  since  have 
ceased  to  be  matters  of  debate.  What  the  understand- 
ing is  competent  to  decide,  it  does  decide  beyond  the 
possibility  of  question.  If  by  its  own  methods,  in  its 
own  right,  it  could  decide  these  questions,  there  would 
be  no  more  difference  of  opinion  concerning  them  than 
there  is  concerning  the  properties  of  a  circle  or  a  trian- 
gle. There  are  no  open  questions  in  mathematics. 
There  is  but  one  theory  in  astronomy,  in  mechanics,  in 
any  department  of  inquiry  of  w^hich  the  understanding 
is  an  adequate  judge.  Accordingly,  recent  philosophers 
have  excluded  from  their  survey  of  human  knowledge 
all  ideas  of  God  and  spirit,  — whatever  transcends  the 
facts  of  sense  and  the  methods  of  the  understanding,  as 
without  the  pale  of  legitimate  inquiry.  To  all  the 
revelations  of  faith  and  feeling  they  oppose  their  so- 
called  "positive  philosophy." 

The  truths  of  religion  are  not  discovered  by  the 
understanding :  they  are  not  laid  hold  of  by  scientific 
inquiry.  The  understanding  has  no  God,  no  spiritual 
high  calling,  no  immortal  destination.  Whoever  would 
know  of  these  things  must  arrive  at  them  by  a  different 
way :  he  must  follow  the  dictates  of  faith ;  he  must 
obey  the  law  written  in  the  heart ;  he  must  live  in  them 
and  for  them.  To  the  mere  understanding,  the  world 
is  as  intelligible  and  as  satisfactory  without  a  God  as 
with  one.  If  the  only  use  of  belief  in  a  God  were  to 
furnish  a  theory  of  the  material  universe,  to  account  for 
the  origin  of  things,  —  by  means  of  a  "First  Cause" 
and  a  supernmndane,  creative  Power  to  aid  the  under- 


14  INTRODUCTORY. 

standing  in  the  solution  of  its  problems, — humanity 
could  do  without  this  idea,  which,  after  all,  does  not 
solve  the  problem  of  existence  to  the  intellect,  but  only 
replaces  it  by  a  new  one,  and  gives  us,  instead  of  an 
inexplicable  world,  a  more  inexplicable  God.  If  the 
understanding  were  the  only  or  principal  source  and 
organ  of  truth,  mankind  would  have  lived  to  this  day 
without  God  in  the  world,  and  would  never  have  felt 
the  want  of  the  Being  whom  we  so  name  ;  would  never 
have  felt  the  inadequacy  of  a  world  without  a  God. 
But  there  are  other  faculties  and  functions  in '  man ; 
other  sources  of  perception  and  conviction  than  the 
understanding  ;  and  other  necessities  and  cravings  than 
those  which  the  understanding  can  supply.  There  are 
moral  and  spiritual  sentiments  and  aspirations, — the 
sense  of  duty,  of  moral  obligation  and  accountablencss  ; 
the  longing  of  the  soul  for  an  infinite  good ;  the  loyalty 
of  the  affections  to  an  invisible  Supreme ;  faith,  devo- 
tion, hope.  These  demand  a  God  and  providence  and 
grace,  a  spiritual  world,  and  everlasting  life. 

The  greatest  philosopher  of  the  last  century  em- 
ployed the  penetrating  analysis  of  the  keenest  powers 
that  ever  dealt  with  metaphysical  problems,  in  a  critical 
examination  of  human  ideas  and  belief,  with  a  view  to 
ascertain  what  portion  of  our  supposed  knowledge  could 
be  absolutely  legitimated  by  scientific  demonstration. 
He  could  find  no  logical  foundation,  no  critical  author- 
ity, for  those  ideas  with  which  religion  is  conversant, — 
the  sublimest  convictions  of  the  human  mind,  —  God, 
infinity,  eternity.  And  he  wrote  a  book,  in  which  he 
denied  to  these  ideas  any  basis  in  pure  reason,  any 
scientific  value.     But  our  philosopher  was  too  wise  not 


BEING   AND    SEEING.  15 

to  perceive,  that  convictions  so  deeply  rooted,  so  univer- 
sally diffused,  so  inseparable  from  human  nature,  could 
not  be  mere  illusions,  but  must  have  some  other  basis 
besides  tradition  and  popular  prejudice.  He  saw  that 
man  needed  a  God,  and  he  saw  that  the  need  implied 
the  reality.  He  therefore  applied  his  analysis  next 
to  the  moral  and  practical  part  of  man's  nature  ;  and  he 
found  the  ideas  of  God  and  eternity  to  be  legitimate 
inductions  of  the  moral  sense,  truths  logically  resulting 
from  the  feeling  of  moral  obligation,  — the  law  written 
in  the  heart.  That  law,  he  concluded,  must  have  a 
lawgiver ;  that  obligation,  a  sanction ;  that  conscious- 
ness, an  object ;  there  must  be  a  God  to  answer  these 
conditions,  to  explain  the  facts  of  the  soul.  And  he 
wrote  another  book,  affirming,  as  truths  of  practical 
reason,  what  the  speculative  reason  had  denied. 

That  part  of  man's  nature  which  science  calls  into 
action  is  not  the  whole  man.  Spiritually,  intellectually 
even,  it  is  a  very  small  part  of  us,  and  however  re- 
spectable, however  wonderful  in  its  capacity,  is  com- 
paratively limited  and  transient  in  its  application.  A 
man  may  be  very  able  and  very  eminent  as  a  scientist, 
immensely  learned,  astonishingly  acute ;  and  yet  be  a 
poor  creature  tried  by  the  true  criterion  and  highest 
standard  of  humanity.  He  may  be  a  mere  child  in 
spiritual  attainments  and  spiritual  insight ;  a  stranger  to 
all  the  deeper  experiences  of  the  soul ;  morally  meagre, 
lank,  hungry,  destitute.  With  great  activity  of  brain, 
there  may  be  an  utter  want  of  interior  life. 

Far  be  it  from  me  to  undervalue  the  work  of  the 
understanding,  or  to  speak  disparagingly  of  the  scien- 
tific mind  in  its  own  legitimate  province  and  function, 


16  INTRODUCTORY. 

or  to  cast  contempt  on  scientific  pursuits.  Who  can 
help  revering  the  power  which  possesses  and  rules  this 
world  of  ours  like  a  second  terrestrial  god, — that  power 
to  which  !N^ature,  in  all  her  realms,  is  subject  and 
tributary ;  to  which  the  deeps  below  and  the  deeps 
above  yield  up  their  secrets  ;  which  makes  to  itself  eyes, 
that,  transcending  the  limits  of  natural  vision,  discover 
new  worlds  in  the  heavenly  spaces,  millions  of  miles 
removed,  or  detect  them  near  by,  in  a  globule  of  water 
or  a  grain  of  sand ;  —  the  speculative  faculty  which 
methodizes  the  heavens  with  its  unerring  calculus,  and 
predicts  the  position  of  a  planet  in  some  far-removed 
time  ;  —  the  practical  faculty  which  utilizes  the  waste  of 
Nature  ;  which  harnesses  the  idle  vapor  to  the  axle  of  a 
carriage,  or  chains  it  to  the  oars  of  a  ship,  and  traverses 
earth  and  ocean  by  aid  of  this  ethereal  agent ;  which 
converses  with  distant  lands  in  electric  whispers  of 
instantaneous  communication ;  which  disarms  the  sur- 
geon's lancet  of  its  terrors,  and  transmutes  the  agonies 
of  the  flesh  into  tranquil  dreams?  Who  can  help  ad- 
miring these  things  and  triumphing  in  these  triumphs  ? 

Nevertheless,  this  power  which  spans  the  heavens 
and  subdues  the  earth  has  no  interest  or  part  in  the 
highest  objects  of  human  life  and  the  noblest  aspira- 
tions of  the  human  soul.  It  has  no  experience  and  no 
vision  and  no  surmise  of  the  real  and  eternal.  The 
devout  heart  is  conscious  of  a  higher  calling  and  wor- 
thier aims  than  the  scientific  mind ;  and  many  an  un- 
learned but  faithful  doer  of  God's  will  converses  with 
sublimer  topics  than  "  star  -  eyed  science "  has  ever 
scanned.  To  science  belongs  the  material  universe, 
with  its  heights  and  its  deeps,  its  earths  and  its  suns, 


BEING  AND   SEEING.  17 

its  stuffs  and  its  shows.  Still,  the  material  universe  is 
but  a  sprinkling  of  dust  upon  the  spiritual  All  which 
encloses  it ;  at  best,  a  transient  vision,  a  temporary 
showino^  of  God  to  the  finite  mind.  It  had  a  besfin- 
ning,  it  will  have  an  end ;  and  the  science  which  ex- 
plores it  must  share  with  it  its  date  and  its  doom.  But 
faith  and  duty  have  the  spiritual  and  real,  —  absolute 
Being,  for  their  sphere  and  portion.  The  knowledge 
which  they  acquire  is  not  relative  and  accidental,  but 
essential  and  unchangeable;  for,  in  it,  Being  and 
Knowing  are  one. 


n. 

"NATURAL    AND    SPIRITUAL." 


II, 

"NATUEAL  AND   SPIRITUAL." 


"  There  are  not  two  worlds,  but  one  and  the  same,  embracing  all,  even 
that  which  vulgar  thought  conceives  as  opposite,  —  Nature  and  Spirit." 

SCHELLING. 


The  popular  religion  is  Manichean.  It  is  so  not  only 
in  its  pneumatology,  where  it  has  the  warrant  of  its 
sacred  books,  but  also  in  its  ontology,  where  it  has  no 
such  warrant.  It  assumes,  in  the  current  antithesis  of 
Nature  and  Spirit,  a  duality  of  which  its  scripture 
knows  nothing.*  The  doctrine  crept  into  the  Church 
from  an  extra  Christian  source,  and  belongs  to  another 
system.  A  distinction  is  recognized  by  philosophy, 
ancient  and  modern,  between  soul  and  spirit.  The 
soul  is  common  to  man  with  the  brute ;  the  spirit  is 
that  which  distinguishes  him  from  other  animals.  This 
distinction,  in  the  hands  of  theologians,  became  oppug- 
nance :  a  difference  of  degree  became  battle-array  of 
hostile  forces.  Instead  of  " natural "  and  " supernatural," 
the  two  were  conceived  as  natural  and  contranatural. 

*  St.  Paul  distinguishes  between  animal  and  spiritual,  —  to  ipvxtfcov  and 
TO  TTVEViiaTLKOv.  Our  version  improperly  renders  the  former  term  "  natural." 
Hence  the  popular  dualism.  There  is  nothing  of  this  dualism  in  the  doc- 
trine of  Christ,  who  so  penetrated  what  we  call  Nature  with  his  spiritual 
vision  as  to  see  only  spirit  there,  and  who  was  so  domesticated  in  what  we 
call  the  spiritual  world,  that  to  him  it  was  as  natural  as  earth  and  sky. 

[211 


22  INTRODUCTORY. 

Nature  was  put  in  antagonism  with  spirit,  that  is,  witli 
God ;  and  St.  Augustine,  who  did  more  than  any  other 
to  mould  the  anthropology  of  the  Christian  Church, 
and  who  never  outgrew  his  Manichean  antecedents, 
taught  that  all  which  is  good  in  man  is  contrary  to 
nature,  and  that  all  which  is  natural  in  man  is  Satanic ; 
making  the  human  a  mere  arena  for  the  demonstration 
of  hellish  and  divine  powers. 

So  ingrained  in  the  language  of  religion  is  this  dual- 
ism, that  the  popular  theology  is  ineradicably  infected, 
the  popular  mind  irrecoverably  bewildered,  by  it. 
Writers  in  defence  of  Christianity  declare  it  to  be 
"against  the  grain  of  human  nature,"  and  fancy  that 
they  exalt  it  by  this  declaration.  What  could  infidel 
say  more  damaging  to  the  cause  of  Christian  truth  ? 

As  a  classification  of  the  facts  of  life  whereby  one 
class  of  phenomena  and  functions  is  distinguished  from 
another,  the  antithesis  of  natural  and  spiritual,  although 
inadequate,  might  pass  as  loose  phraseology.  But  to 
make  of  the  rhetorical  antithesis  an  ontological  antag- 
onism, to  say  that  nature  and  spirit  are  mutually 
oppugnant,  is  to  put  contradiction  in  the  Godhead ;  or, 
what  is  the  same  thing,  to  affirm  two  Gods. 

What  we  mean  by  nature,  when  we  speak  of  it  as  an 
active  power,  is  God.  And  "  that  which  is  natural," — 
vegetable  and  animal,  day  and  night,  summer  and 
winter,  growth  and  decay,  —  are  divine  operations, 
processes  ordained  and  conducted  by  God.  And,  what 
we  mean  by  spirit,  —  is  it  not  the  same  God?  And 
"that  which  is  spiritual," — truth  and  goodness,  conver-, 
sion,  grace, —  are  these  not  also  divine  operations,  pro- 
cesses, acts?     Are  they  not  also  of  the  very  God  who 


"natural  and  spiritual."  23 

made  day  and  night,  and  the  earth  and  the  stars? 
Further  than  this  we  cannot  go.  We  have  no  experi- 
ence and  no  revelation  which  reaches  behind  the  pheno- 
mena ;  no  revelation  other  than  that  of  the  one  Creator 
and  Spirit.  We  only  know  that  all  phenomena  have 
one  origin  at  last ;  that  the  same  all-present  and  all- 
teeming  Power  works  equally  in  the  soul  and  in  the 
sod,  is  manifest,  however  diversely,  in  the  life  of  a  saint 
and  the  life  of  a  plant ;  that  the  God  who  makes  grass 
to  grow  in  the  field  makes  love  and  goodness  to  spring 
in  the  heart ;  that  the  Father  of  spirits  is  the  sparrow's 
Father  too,  and  the  Father  of  the  lilies  of  the  field; 
that  the  sovereign  Will,  which,  in  one  of  its  aspects, 
we  term  the  law  of  gravitation,  in  another  is  the  law 
of  duty  which  impels  the  Christian  and  the  Christ. 

Nature  and  spirit  are  not  opposite,  but  one ;  related 
to  each  other  as  genus  and  species,  or  as  parts  of  one 
whole ;  the  same  arch-power  in  different  characters 
and  functions.  It  matters  little  how  we  theorize  about 
them,  so  long  as  we  acknowledge  in  nature  and  spirit  a 
common  fountain  and  a  radical  affinity  thence  arising. 
We  may  call  nature  unconscious  spirit,  and  spirit  con- 
scious nature ;  or  we  may  regard  them  as  parallel  inde- 
pendent manifestations.  However  we  may  speculate, 
the  essential  fact  remains.  Both  meet  in  one  source ; 
both  reflect  one  image.  All  that  is  natural  is  spiritual 
"  in  its  ascent  and  cause  ;  "  all  that  is  spiritual  is  natural 
"in  its  descent  and  being." 

If  for  "natural"  we  substitute  "material,"  we  have, 
it  might  seem,  a  more  legitimate  antithesis.  But,  even 
then,  the  terms  should  be  conceived  as  expressing 
different  stages  of  being,  not  contrary  powers.     Matter 


24  INTEODUCTORY. 

is  nature  at  rest ;  spirit  is  nature  in  action.  Through- 
out nature,  there  is  a  tendency  and  an  effort  to  become 
spirit,  a  struggling-up  into  liberty  and  consciousness. 
From  shapeless  masses  to  the  salient  crystal,  the  be- 
ginning of  intelligible  form ;  to  the  growing  plant,  the 
beginning  of  organism ;  to  the  sentient  animal,  the  first 
revelation  of  conscious  soul ;  to  rational  man,  the  highest 
and  last  revelation  of  spirit ;  —  the  progress  is  still  from 
stage  to  stage  of  natural  life.  We  say  of  the  plant,  it 
lives.  Previous  to  that,  through  all  the  stages  of  the 
mineral  kingdom,  —  earths,  metals,  jewels, — Nature 
had  slept.  But  now,  with  the  plant,  she  awakes  from 
her  torpor,  and  looks  about  her.  From  the  dark  bosom 
of  insensate  matter  emerges  a  soul.  Intelligence  looks 
out  from  the  full-blown  flower ;  instinct  shows  itself  in 
the  natural  adaptation  of  the  seed  to  the  soil.  With 
the  brute  creation,  nature  attains  a  higher  level,  — 
becomes  more  active  and  free.  Deeper  instincts,  sen- 
sation, affection,  begin  to  appear.  Then  finally,  in 
man,  the  same  nature  appears  as  spirit :  it  becomes 
reflective,  self-conscious,  moral.  The  sense  of  obliga- 
tion, aspiration,  reverence,  charity,  faith,  devotion,  are 
its  finished  fruits. 

In  this  progressive  unfolding  of  itself  from  what  we 
call  matter  to  what  we  call  spirit,  nature  does  not  cease 
to  be  nature  as  it  rises  and  ripens.  The  flower  is  not 
less  natural  than  the  earth  from  which  it  springs ;  the 
animal,  not  less  natural  than  the  plant ;  and  the  perfect 
man  with  all  his  aspirations  and  his  virtues,  the  pro- 
phet, the  saint,  is  not  less  natural,  but  more  so,  than 
plant  and  brute ;  more  natural  because  more  developed 
and  complete. 


"natural  and  spiritual."  25 

And  now,  within  the  region  of  the  human,  what  do 
we  mean,  what  can  we  mean,  by  the  "natural"  and  the 
"spiritual"  man?  I  say,  the  natural  and  the  spiritual 
man  are  the  same  man  in  different  manifestations  and 
stages  of  growth.  They  differ  from  each  other  as  the 
garden-plant  differs  from  the  same  plant  in  its  native 
state.  We  say  of  fruits  and  flowers  which  derive  their 
character  from  the  culture  bestowed  upon  them  and 
without  that  culture  could  not  be  what  they  are,  —  we 
say  they  are  not  natural  but  artificial  products.  In 
one  sense,  we  are  right :  they  are  not  original  nature. 
And  yet  they  are  natural.  For  "nature  is  made  better 
by  no  means,  but  nature  makes  that  means."  The 
very  culture  bestowed  on  flower  and  fruit  is  an  opera- 
tion of  nature.  In  all  that  he  does  in  the  way  of  culti- 
vation, man  employs  the  aid  of  natural  agents  and 
laws.  Whatever  he  produces,  therefore,  is  a  product 
of  nature.  So,  too,  the  spiritual  —  our  virtue,  our 
religion  —  is,  in  this  sense,  a  natural  product.  As  the 
plant  is  created  a  flower -and-fruit-bearing  creature,  so 
man  is  created  a  moral  and  religious  creature :  he  has  a 
capacity  of  moral  and  religious  life,  as  the  plant  has 
a  capacity  of  floral  and  pomal  life.  In  either  case, 
culture  is  requu-ed  to  bring  out  that  capacity;  and 
whatever  that  culture  produces  is  natural.  No  measure 
of  holiness,  no  work  of  grace,  can  exceed  nature. 
Whatever  height  of  goodness  the  saint  may  attain  in 
his  upward  progress,  he  can  arrive  at  nothing  of  which 
the  germ  and  the  promise  were  not  laid  in  his  constitu- 
tion.    He  can  arrive  at  nothing  that  is  not  natural. 

This  view  does  not  overlook  the  immediate  action  of 
Deity  on  the  soul.     It  does  not  overlook  or  deny  what 


2  6  INTRODUCTORY . 

is  technically  called  the  operation  of  divine  grace. 
Whoever  believes  in  God  as  a  present,  immanent, 
diffusive  Power,  not  as  an  isolated,  incommunicable 
individuality,  will  recognize  a  divine  agency  in  those 
influences  which  regenerate  human  nature,  renewing 
the  selfish,  earth-bound  soul,  and  establishing  the  em- 
pire of  truth  and  goodness  in  man's  will  and  life.  All 
such  influences  are  God  working  in  us  to  will  and  to 
do.  To  question  a  divine  agency  in  the  education,  or 
in  the  conversion  and  renewing,  of  the  human  soul,  is 
to  question  a  fact  to  which  the  consciousness  of  every 
Christian  man  or  woman  will  bear  witness.  But  what 
right  have  we  to  say  that  there  is  any  thing  unnatural 
in  this  kind  of  influence, —  any  thing  which  distinguishes 
it  from  other  divine  operations,  except  the  direction 
which  it  takes,  and  the  consequences  in  which  it  re- 
sults ?  What  process  or  product  of  nature  is  there  in 
which  the  agency  of  the  same  God  is  not  concerned? 
Not  to  speak  of  great  things,  of  suns  and  systems,  and 
the  earth  with  its  seasons,  take  the  humblest  product 
of  a  summer's  growth  ;  take  the  berry  by  the  wayside, 
the  clover  in  the  field.  These  creatures  exhibit  the 
immediate  action  of  God  in  every  period  and  circum- 
stance of  their  being.  The  juices  of  the  earth,  the 
beams  of  the  sun,  the  summer  showers  wliich  conspire 
to  unfold  their  little  life,  which  round  their  bodies  and 
paint  their  cheeks  and  put  sweetness  in  all  their  cells, 
—  what  are  these  but  so  many  agencies  and  aspects 
and  acts  of  the  universal  Being  who  is  equally  present 
and  equally  active  and  equally  perfect  in  the  clover  and 
the  berry,  and  the  soul  of  man?  If,  then.  Divinity  is 
required  to  call  forth  and  perfect  the  produce  of  the 


"natural  and  spiritual."  27 

field,  which  to-day  is,  and  to-morrow  passes  away,  how 
much  more  is  such  agency  required  to  unfold  the  moral 
life  which  never  dies  ?  "We  may  call  this  agency  in  the 
one  case  a  process  of  nature ;  in  the  other,  an  operation 
of  the  spirit :  but  these  phrases  do  not  alter  the  identity 
of  the  agent.  Because  the  effects  are  different,  is  it  riot 
therefore  the  same  God?  "There  are  diversities  of 
operations  ;  but  it  is  tlie  same  God  who  worketh  all  in 
all." 

A  process  of  nature  is  also  a  work  of  grace,  and  a 
work  of  grace  is  also  a  process  of  nature.  We  no 
more  degrade  the  agency  in  the  one  case  by  giving  it 
that  name,  than  we  exaggerate  it  in  the  other.  What 
but  a  miracle  of  grace  is  each  returning  spring,  unlock- 
ing myriad  doors  of  life,  flooding  the  landscape  with 
glory  and  joy,  everywhere  bursting  into  flower  and 
sons:,  evano'elizins:  the  new-born  earth  with  summer 
beauty  and  harvest  hopes  ?  The  heart  is  not  satisfied 
with  ascribing  all  this  to  the  different  position  of  the 
sun  LQ  the  ecliptic,  and  the  action  of  cold  mechanical 
laws.  Piety  sees  here  the  immediate  presence  and 
grace  of  God;  and  long  ago,  before  the  revelation  in 
Jesus  Christ,  had  learned  and  sung  the  great  truth, 
"  Thou  sendest  forth  thy  spirit ;  they  are  created  :  thou 
renewest  the  face  of  the  earth."  And  so,  on  the  other 
side  of  the  antithesis,  the  purest  manifestations  of 
diviae  o:race  do  not  disdain  to  exhibit  themselves  in 
natural  processes  ;  and,  even  of  him  whose  life  was  the 
advent  of  grace  and  truth  on  the  earth,  it  is  written, 
that  "  the  child  grew,  and  waxed  strong  in  spirit,"  and 
"  increased  in  wisdom  and  in  stature,  and  in  favor  with 
God  and  man."     The  operation  of  God's  spirit  in  the 


28  IXTRODUCTOliY. 

reo'eneration  of  a  human  heart  but  uufokls  a  llfe-2:errn 
inborn  in  that  heart,  and  is  therefore  a  natural  process, 
as  much  so  as  the  growth  of  an  apple  or  an  apple-tree. 
The  tree  may  never  bear,  and  man's  spiritual  life  may 
never  mature ;  but  there  it  is :  there  is  the  faculty, 
there  is  the  root.  Whatever  springs  from  that  faculty 
and  that  root  is  a  natural  product. 

This  view  is  something  more  than  philosophic  specu- 
lation :  it  is  theologically  and  practically  important  in 
its  bearings  on  human  duty  and  destiny.  If  we  say 
that  natural  and  spiritual  are  contrary  and  incompati- 
ble, we  affirm  that  religion  is  unnatural,  contranatural ; 
that  man  must  become  denaturalized,  must  become 
inhuman,  before  he  can  become  religious,  —  before  he 
can  lead  a  religious  life.  And  this,  I  grieve  to  say,  is 
virtually  the  doctrine  of  a  large  portion  of  the  Christian 
world.  The  doctrine  taught  by  Augustine,  and  revived 
by  Calvin,  is,  that  human  nature,  as  such,  is  adverse 
to  religion ;  that  Christianity  and  human  nature  are 
related  to  each  other,  not  merely  as  root  and  fruit,  or  as 
stock  and  graft,  but  as  fire  and  water,  or  as  heaven 
and  hell.  Human  nature,  as  such,  according  to  this 
doctrine,  is  incapable  of  holiness :  nature  must  be 
supplanted  by  grace.  Until  that  revolution  is  accom- 
plished, all  that  man  does,  how^ever  angelic  in  appear- 
ance, is  sinful  and  devilish ;  and,  after  that  change  has 
taken  place,  the  righteousness  that  follows  is  no  product 
of  human  nature,  but  grace  excluding  liuman  nature, 
and  acting  in  its  stead.  All  this  has  been  inferred 
from  that  saying  of  St.  Paul,  —  or  been  thought  to  be 
sanctioned  by  that  saying,  — "  The  natural  man  re- 
ceiveth  not  the  things  of  the  spirit  of  God."     I  cannot 


"natural  and  spiritual."'  29 

so  interpret  the  apostle's  language.  For  "natural"  let 
us  say  "  animal ;  "  and  the  real  meaning  will  be  found 
to  be  this,  — Man,  as  an  animal,  with  only  so  much  of 
mental  life  developed  in  him  as  belongs  to  his  sphere  in 
the  animal  scale,  cannot  receive  the  truths  of  the  gos- 
pel :  he  cannot  be  a  Christian.  A  further  development 
is  needed  for  that.  Even  as  animal,  man  develops  a 
certain  degree  of  mental  or  spiritual  life  :  he  is  capable 
of  society  and  civil  government,  but  not  of  religion, 
not  of  conscious  communion  with  God,  not  of  worship- 
ping in  spirit  and  truth.  To  attain  that  is  the  new 
birth  by  w^hich  man  becomes  what  Paul  calls  "spir- 
itual," as  distinguished  from  animal.  One  is  repre- 
sented by  Adam ;  the  other,  by  Christ.  But  both  are 
one  and  the  same  man, — the  same  human  nature  in 
different  stages  of  development.  First  that  which  is 
animal ;    then  that  which  is  spiritual. 

Human  nature,  as  such,  is  not  hostile  to  religion ; 
but  a  hostile  principle,  as  we  all  know,  may  spring  up 
in  it.  There  is  a  possible  adversary  in  human  nature 
as  well  as  a  "Lord  from  heaven."  In  man,  as  we  find 
him,  for  the  most  part,  there  are  opposite  tendencies : 
a  principle  of  self  and  a  principle  of  love ;  an  upward 
and  a  downward  tendency.  But  both  of  these  tenden- 
cies are  equally  natural :  the  one  is  as  proper  to  man  as 
the  other.  Both  are  constituent  elements  of  humanity. 
Man's  calling  is  to  subdue  the  one,  and  unfold  the 
other. 

Here,  then,  is  the  true  antagonism.  Not  nature  and 
spirit  are  contrary,  but  the  worldly  (or  carnal)  and  the 
heavenly  mind.  "  The  carnal  mind,"  it  is  written,  "  is 
enmity  against  God."     Yet  even  here  we  have  to  dis- 


30  INTRODUCTORY. 

tinguish  between  the  carnal  mind  in  its  proper  essence, 
and  those  to  whom  that  mind  maybe  ascribed, — be- 
tween worldliness  intrinsically  considered,  and  worldly 
men.  It  is  my  belief,  that  worldliness  is  seldom  so 
predominant  as  utterly  to  extinguish  the  moral  and 
religious  life.  The  most  worldly-minded  have  some 
religious  experiences ;  some  aspirations,  some  gropings, 
at  least,  sufficient  to  attest  the  fellowship  of  the  Spirit, 
though  not  sufficient  to  regenerate  the  life.  Could  you 
look  into  the  heart's  recesses  of  this  unregenerate  world- 
ling ;  this  eager,  driving  man  of  business,  to  whom, 
if  you  speak  of  the  "  highest  interest,"  he  straightway 
thinks  of  his  ten  per  cent;  of  this  hack -politician, 
who  trades  in  principles,  and  would  sell  his  country  for 
some  paltry  office  in  the  gift  of  Government ;  of  this 
bloated  sensualist,  whose  face  is  a  record  of  no  spiritual 
experiences,  but  of  spirituous  draughts  and  unctuous 
repasts,  —  could  you  penetrate  the  interior  of  such 
characters,  you  would  find,  that,  even  there,  in  those 
wastes  and  deserts  of  the  soul,  the  Holy  Spirit  is  not 
quite  extinct  ;  you  would  find  even  there  some  faint 
flicker  of  the  everlasting  Light,  feeble  though  it  be 
as  the  last  gleam  of  departing  day  on  some  desolate 
crag,  which  reddens  without  reclaiming  its  ungracious 
barrenness.  I  have  seen  in  Catholic  lands  a  wayside 
chapel  which  seemed  to  be  divested  of  all  sacred  asso- 
ciations, —  exposed  as  it  was  to  public  desecration,  and 
covered  with  the  dust  of  daily  travel ;  but,  entering, 
I  found,  in  a  quiet  niche,  a  votive  lamp,  which  the  piety 
of  another  generation  had  kindled,  and  which  the  pres- 
ent generation  would  not  suffer  to  go  out.  And  I 
thought,  how  many  a  man  of  affairs,  who  stands  in  the 


"natural  and  spiritual."  31  ^ 

thick  of  public  life,  and  is  well-nigh  smothered  with 
the  dust  of  the  world,  may  have  in  his  heart  some  quiet 
corner  where  the  lamp  of  life  which  a  pious  mother 
once  kindled  there  burns  feebly  indeed,  but  still  burns, 
and  may,  by  God's  grace,  flame  forth  one  day  into  fer- 
vent devotion ! 

The  worldly  mind,  in  its  proper  essence,  is  enmity 
against  God ;  but  men  of  the  world  are  not  all  worldly. 
The  deepest  tendency  of  every  being  is  Godward ;  and 
when  all  the  layers  of  life  are  removed,  and  all  other 
images  erased  from  the  heart,  the  image  of  God  will  be 
found  there,  inwrought  and  indelible.  And  when  all 
the  experiments  of  life  have  been  tried,  and  all  other 
satisfactions  exhausted,  the  heart  will  still  thirst  for 
"the  living  God"  with  longings  insatiable. 


BOOK  FIEST. 


I. 

THE  RETREATING  GOD. 


BOOK  FIEST. 


I. 

THE  EETREATING   GOD. 

The  eldest  of  religious  ideas  remains  to  this  day  the 
most  indemonstrable,  the  most  undefinable.  For  un- 
known ao^es,  religion  has  said  "  God"  with  intense  con- 
viction  of  some  arch-reality  answering  to  that  term, 
and  has  wondered  and  trembled  and  triumphed  in  the 
contemplation  of  that  reality ;  yet  science,  at  this  mo- 
ment, is  no  nearer  the  truth  of  that  idea,  no  better 
prepared  to  affimm  it  on  independent  grounds,  no'  more 
ready  to  say  "  God  "  from  any  discovery  or  experience 
of  its  own,  than  when  it  first  opened  the  book  of  Na- 
ture. In  that  book,  as  leaf  after  leaf  was  turned  over, 
Science  found  order,  laAv,  intelligent  method,  beneficent 
arrangement ;  but  a  Being  distinct  from  nature,  in 
whom  those  qualities  inhere,  it  found  not,  and  cannot 
find  by  its  own  legitimate  methods. 

Attempts  have  been  made  to  prove  the  existence  of 
God  fi-om  nature.  Whatever  apparent  success  has  at- 
tended such  efforts  is  due  to  an  antecedent  faith  already 
possessed  of  the  God  w^hom  it  sought.  The  first  glance 
at  nature  reveals  him  to  faith ;  the  most  intimate  ac- 

[35] 


36      RELIGION   WITHIN   THE   BOUNDS   OF   THEISM. 

qiiaintance  with  nature  will  not  reveal  him  to  science. 
There  is  no  way  to  God  through  the  understanding, 
which  knows  only  to  arrange  and  elaborate  what  the 
senses  supply.  He  who,  by  the  very  hypothesis  of  his 
being,  underlies  both  the  senses  and  the  understanding, 
and  is  himself  the  light  by  which  they  see,  must  needs 
be  inscrutable  to  both.  He  eludes  investigation,  not 
by  foreignness  and  distance,  but  by  intimate  nearness. 
No  candle  can  show  us  the  daylight ;  we  cannot  go 
behind  our  own  consciousness ;  we  cannot  see  behind 
our  eyes.  "  I  am  nearer  to  thee,"  he  says  in  the  Per- 
sian oracle,  "than  thou  art  to  thyself." — "The  roads 
leadino^  to  God  are  more  in  number  than  the  breathin<2:s 
of  created  beings.  .  .  .  The  eyes  of  purity  see  him, 
and  the  lustre  of  his  substance  ;  but  dark  and  astounded 
is  he  who  hath  sought  him  by  efforts  of  the  understand- 
ing." Hussein  was  asked  the  way  to  God.  "With- 
draw both  feet,  and  thou  art  with  him,  —  one  from  this 
world,  the  other  from  the  world  to  come." 

When  we  say  he  is  inscrutable,  it  is  not  in  the  sense 
of  latency,  as  a  jewel  of  the  mine  is  inscrutable,  but  in 
the  sense  of  reconditeness,  as  light  and  life  are  inscru- 
table, which  yet  are  the  most  patent  of  sensible  facts. 
Our  knowledge  of  God  is  constituted  by  faith  and  con- 
scious experience.  If  we  attempt  to  verify  that  knowl- 
edge by  demonstration,  it  disappears.  The  moment 
we  approach  God  with  scientific  tests,  "he  hideth  him- 
self." And  his  hiding  is  his  own  transcendent  light. 
As  science  advances,  God  retires  from  the  commerce 
of  the  understanding  into  mystery  more  and  more  im- 
penetrable. Do  we  seek  him  in  the  realms  of  space  ? 
Science  rebukes  that  quest  as  preposterous.     How  can 


THE    RETREATING   GOD.  37 

he  be  nearer  to  one  point  of  space  than  another,  of 
whose  idea  omnipresence  is  a  prime  constituent?   What 
lurking-place,  what  local  retreat,  what  private  chamber 
in  the  heights  or  the  deeps,  can  we  assign  to  God? 
With  powers   of  perception  that  could  look  creation 
through,  we  should  come  no  nearer  the  secret  of  his 
presence.     We  need  not  be  told  that  the  fancied  throne 
above  the  heavens,  which  figures  in  the  poetry  of  an- 
cient devotion,  is  a  crude  and  childish  conceit ;   but, 
for  scientific  purposes,  what  does  it  avail  to  take  up 
the  word  of  philosophy  and  talk  of  the  one  sole  Sub- 
stance, the  all  -  animating  Life?      The  being  of  God 
is  brought  no  nearer  by  such  phraseology.     For  who, 
in   any   creature,    can    detect    the    final    secret   of  its 
life,  or  discover  by  analysis  any  thing  more  essential 
and  divine  than  life  itself,  as  it  passes  before  our  eyes  ? 
No  experiment  will  disclose  the  root  and  substance  by 
which  an  object  subsists.     Science  explores  the  secrets 
of  nature,  and  hopes,  by  removing  veil  after  veil  of 
material  form,  to  come  upon  the  innermost  hidden  life, 
—  the  soul  or  substance  which  those  veils  conceal,  —  to 
reach  the  radical  essence  of  thino-s.     But  science  finds 
only  qualities,  —  form,   color,   size:    the  substance  in 
which  those  qualities  inhere  is  undiscoverable.      The 
most  powerful  microscope,  the  most  active  chemistry, 
detects  only  qualities.     Science,  through  all  eternity, 
will  discover  nothing  else. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  say,  as  Jesus  taught  us, 
"  God  is  a  spirit,"  we  have  the  statement  which  best 
satisfies  rational  faith,  but  not  one  which  serves  any 
better  as  a  demonstration  of  God  to  the  understandino;. 
All  that  the  understanding  can  know  of  spirit  is  nega- 


38       RELIGION   WITHIN   THE   BOUNDS   OF   THEISM. 

tive ;  that  it  is  not  body,  and  has  none  of  the  properties 
of  body,  —  no  parts  nor  form  nor  color,  density  or 
weight.  The  thing  itself  which  we  designate  as  spirit, 
in  its  positive  essence,  is  unknown,  is  inconceivable. 

In  whatever  way,  by  whatsoever  terms,  we  state  our 
idea  of  the  beino:  of  God,  the  substance  of  that  beins; 
for  ever  eludes,  not  only  the  test  of  scientific  inquiry, 
but  all  intellectual  conception.  As  substance,  God  is 
not  only  inscrutable,  but  inconceivable. 

Is  he,  then,  more  apparent,  or  more  traceable,  as 
agent  and  cause?  Do  we  seek  him,  in  that  capacity, 
in  the  processes  of  nature?  We  find  there  only  our 
own  inferences,  —  confirmations  of  a  preconceived  idea. 
We  see  what  we  call  design,  adaptation  of  means  to 
ends,  which  proves  intelligence.  But  intelligence  in 
nature  is  one,  and  the  God  of  religion  is  another.  It 
is  not  logic,  but  faith,  that  builds  the  inferential  bridge 
between  the  two.  I  said  science  is  no  nearer  to  God, 
no  more  apprehensive  of  the  truth  of  that  idea,  now, 
than  when  the  study  of  nature  commenced.  I  might 
rather  say,  that  science  is  further  estranged  from  that 
idea,  less  cognizant  of  the  being  of  God,  less  ready  to 
aflSrm  him,  now  than  then.  Science  hides  the  agency 
of  God  in  a  multitude  of  secondary  agents,  which  mul- 
tiply the  more,  the  more  we  become  acquainted  with  the 
constitution  of  things.  In  the  infancy  of  knowledge, 
every  thing  was  referred  directly  to  God  as  the  sole  and 
immediate  cause  of  every  existence  and  every  event.  If 
a  nation  was  visited  with  pestilence  or  blight,  it  was  the 
Lord  that  sent  them ;  and  there  ended  the  inquiry. 
There  was  nothing  more  to  be  said  on  the  subject.  If 
a  comet  or  eclipse  appeared  in  the  heavens,  they  were 


THE   RETREATING  GOD.  39 

quite  spontaneous  occurrences,  with  no  antecedent  but 
the  arbitrary  will  of  God.  Every  blessing  and  success 
was  a  special  providence,  entirely  aside  of  the  necessary 
sequence  of  events.  In  the  progress  of  intellectual 
culture,  it  has  come  to  be  understood  that  every  event 
has  its  necessary  antecedent  in  time,  and  forms  a  neces- 
sary Hnk  in  a  chain  of  events  which  extends  indefinitely 
before  and  after,  beyond  the  knowledge  and  surmise  of 
man.  Every  effect  which  we  witness  or  experience  in 
nature  or  ourselves  has  its  necessary  cause  in  some- 
thing that  went  before ;  is  itself  the  cause  of  something 
that  is  to  come ;  is  part  of  a  process  of  which  no  man 
knows  the  beginning  or  the  end.  In  the  view  of  faith, 
the  one  divine  Cause,  the  immediate  will  of  God,  is 
present  and  active  at  every  stage  of  this  process,  — 
is  the  real  agent  by  which  that  'effect  was  produced. 
In  the  view  of  faith,  there  is  but  one  Cause :  those 
which  we  call  secondary  causes  are  no  causes  at  all, 
but  only  accompanying  conditions.  But  this  is  not  the 
aspect  which  the  facts  present  to  science,  holding  by 
visible  agents,  investigating  natural  laws,  and  tracing 
the  necessary  operation  of  cause  and  effect  in  the 
natural  world.  Where  science  finds  an  invariable 
connection  between  certain  antecedents  and  certain  con- 
sequents, where  it  finds  that,  one  particular  thing 
preceding,  another  particular  thing  invariably  follows, 
it  afl^ms  the  former  to  be  the  origin  or  cause  of  the 
latter. 

Thus,  without  any  conscious  atheistic  design,  it  is 
the  tendency  of  science  to  put  God  out  of  view.  Sci- 
ence does  not  formally  deny  the  agency  of  God ;  but  it 
is  not  the  business  of  science  to  take  knowledge  of  it. 


40      RELIGION   WITHIN   THE  BOUNDS   OF  THEISM. 

On  the  contrary,  its  business  is,  if  possible,  to  get  on 
without  it ;  i.e.,  to  discover  for  every  phenomenon  in 
nature  some  natural,  finite,  intelligible  agent,  without 
resorting  to  the  supernatural.  A  resort  to  the  super- 
natural is  a  confession  of  ignorance  which  it  is  the  in- 
terest and  business  of  science,  so  long  as  possible,  to 
avoid.  In  other  words,  it  is  the  interest  of  science,  so 
far  as  possible,  to  banish  the  supernatural ;  that  is,  to 
banish  God  from  the  actual  world.  This  is  not  said  in 
disparagement  of  scientific  men,  who  are  often  devout 
believers.  And  surely  no  class  of  men  have  greater 
reason  to  be  so  !  They  may  heartily  believe  in  God ; 
they  may  acknowledge  his  agency  in  nature ;  they  may 
acknowledge  all  nature  to  be  his  work  and  method  and 
manifestation  :  but  this  acknowledgment  is  out  of 
school.  As  scientific  investigators,  it  is  their  business 
to  find  natural  causes  for  every  fact  and  event ;  to 
supplant  the  supernatural,  so  far  as  possible,  with 
known,  appreciable,  natural  agents.  Where  religion 
says  "  creation,"  science  says  "  development. "  It  refers 
the  genesis  of  things  to  the  operation  of  natural  laws, 
by  which  the  earth,  and  all  the  planets,  suns,  and  stars 
have  shaped  themselves,  in  the  lapse  of  ages,  out  of  the 
shapeless,  igneous  mass  that  furnished  the  raw  material 
of  their  being,  and  by  which  all  the  tribes  of  animated 
nature,  with  man  at  their  head,  have  been  evolved,  in 
their  order,  from  certain  vesicles  and  rudimental  germs 
of  organic  life.  Now,  the  agency  of  God,  in  the  view 
of  faith,  is  as  much  required  to  conduct  this  process, 
and  to  furnish  the  elements  out  of  which  this  develop- 
ment proceeds,  as  it  would  be  to  form  each  creature  by 
itself,  with  a  special  act  of  creative  skill.     But  this  is 


THE    EEIREATmG   GOD.  41 

not  the  scientific  aspect  of  the  subject.  Science  puts 
God  out  of  view,  and  substitutes  law  instead.  A  per- 
sonal agent  in  the  processes  of  nature  is  not  apparent 
to  scientific  investigation. 

If  law"  and  desio-n  and  intelli2:ent  order  are  no 
demonstrations  of  God  to  the  understanding,  neither 
are  the  tokens,  as  we  regard  them,  of  providential 
care, — the  marks  of  divine  beneficence,  the  bounty  of 
Nature,  the  joy  of  which  all  beings  partake  according 
to  the  measure  of  their  capacity  and  kind,  —  demon- 
strations of  God  to  the  understanding:.  The  under- 
standing  recognizes  good  in  nature,  —  genial  sunbeams, 
refreshing  showers ;  the  smiles  of  heaven,  the  wealth 
of  earth ;  the  beauty  of  flowers,  the  deliciousness  of 
fruits.  But  the  understanding  sees  also  evil  in  nature, 
—  evil  and  suffering  so  manifold,  so  vast,  so  irreme- 
diable, that  mere  logic  could  never  reconcile  its  exist- 
ence with  the  doctrine  of  one  God  of  boimdless  wisdom, 
power,  and  goodness,  of  whom  and  by  whom  all  things 
are.  Faith  alone  can  vindicate  that  doctrine  against 
the  contradiction  of  this  enormous  woe.  And  even 
faith,  in  most  religions,  has  had  recourse  to  the  suppo- 
sition of  an  evil  principle  to  meet  the  difficulty  which 
theism  encounters  in  this  aspect  of  things. 

Passing  from  nature  to  the  moral  world,  shall  we 
seek  for  the  agency  of  God  in  human  life?  Shall 
we  seek  him  as  rulino-  and  overrulino;  Providence? 
An  essential  part  of  faith  in  God  is  faith  in  divine 
providence.  No  belief  is  more  precious  to  the  human 
heart,  and  none  perhaps  more  needful,  than  faith  in  a 
special,  providential  agency  interposing  succor  in  sea- 
sons of  peril  and  distress.     But  this  sacred  idea,  this 


42      RELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS   OF  THEISM. 

cherished  conviction,  without  which  religion  can  hardly 
exist,  the  understanding  refuses  to  verify.  The  under- 
standing cannot  find,  in  the  cases  which  are  cited  of 
such  interposition,  any  special  and  extraordinary  agency 
exerted  to  secure  a  particular  end.  The  event  so  sig- 
nalized in  the  view  of  faith  is  found  to  have,  like  every 
other  event,  its  natural  antecedent,  and  to  stand  in 
Intimate,  unbroken  connection  with  the  constant  order 
of  human  things.  The  guiding  power  in  such  cases, 
though  extraordinary  in  our  experience,  is  not  found  to 
be  extraordinary  in  itself.  It  flashed  intensely  upon 
our  feeling ;  but,  when  sought  by  the  understanding,  it 
hides  itself  in  the  ordinary,  fixed  series  of  agencies  and 
functions  by  which  all  the  processes  of  nature,  and 
all  the  events  of  life,  are  conducted  and  brought  to 
pass.  God  came  nearer  to  our  consciousness  in  this 
instance  than  in  others ;  but  the  understanding  finds 
here  also  no  unveiled  Divinity.  It  is  still  the  same 
hidden,  secret  force,  the  same  inexplicable,  inextricable 
web  of  cause  and  effect ;  no  thinner,  no  more  trans- 
parent, at  this  point  than  at  others  in  our  experience 
of  life. 

There  are  cases  in  which  our  impatience  craves  the 
special  action  of  God's  providential  government,  not 
for  our  own,  but  for  others'  and  Humanity's  sake, — 
cases  which  seem  to  us  to  cry  aloud  for  divine  interpo- 
sition, in  the  way  of  protection  or  of  retribution,  to 
avert  some  impending  evil  or  avenge  some  outrageous 
wrong ;  cases  in  which  we  feel,  that,  if  we  had  the 
power,  we  could  not  refrain  from  exerting  it  in  such  a 
cause.  "  Oh  for  an  hour  of  Omnipotence  !  "  sighs  the 
outraged  heart,  in  view  of  triumphant  wrong.     When 


THE   RETREATING   GOD.  43 

the  liberties  of  a  people  are  assailed  with  unrighteous 
usurpation ;  when  the  union  and  existence  of  a  nation 
are  threatened  by  rebellious  treason ;  when  the  God- 
defying  evil-doer  prospers  in  his  wickedness,  — it  seems 
to  us  that  a  merciful  and  just  God  cannot  look  on,  and 
see  the  mischief  grow  and  the  crime  succeed,  the  good 
suffer  and  the  righteous  perish,  without  stretching  forth 
the  arm  of  his  power  to  smite  and  to  save.  But  when 
did  Providence  ever  visibly  respond  to  such  demand? 
The  interposition  comes  not :  God  liides  himself  wlieu 
most  we  need  and  invoke  his  aid.  "  My  God !  my 
God !  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me  ? "  is  a  cry  which 
elicits  no  theophany,  and  wrings  no  audible  response 
from  the  heavens,  —  not  even  when  uttered  by  the  Son 
of  man.  The  answer  is  found  in  the  heart  alone,  —  the 
trusty  heart;  the  brave,  strong  heart;  the  deep,  un- 
lathomable  heart,  that  flings  its  wondrous  self  into  the 
balance,  and  outweighs  a  world  of  woe. 

History  is  full  of  apparent  injustices.  We  see  ca- 
lamities piled  on  the  head  of  the  good  ;  we  see  treacher- 
ous and  bloody  men  prosper  to  the  last.  A  Huss,  a 
Cranmer,  a  Sidney,  a  More,  we  see  perish  at  the 
stake  or  beneath  the  axe ;  while  the  judges  and  kings 
who  condemn  them  die  quietly  in  their  beds.  We 
see  a  Richelieu,  guilty  of  every  vice,  licentious,  cruel, 
tyrannical,  loaded  with  riches  and  honors,  crowned 
with  every  gift  of  fortune,  reaching  an  age  of  more 
than  fourscore  years  without  reverse ;  while  men  like 
Raleigh  and  Yane  are  doomed  to  a  felon's  death. 
Christ  is  crucified,  and  Barabbas  set  free.  Had  the 
Son  of  man  but  come  down  from  the  cross,  every  knee 
had  bowed ;  but  he  came  not  down.     A  righteous  God 


44       EELIGION   WITHIN   THE   BOUNDS    OF   THEISM. 

does  not  interpose  with  visible  retributions  to  avenge 
his  violated  laws,  or  to  rescue  and  protect  his  faithful 
servants.  Nor  is  the  world  so  arranged  by  any  princi- 
ples inherent  in  its  constitution,  and  invariable  in  their 
operation,  as  to  bring  only  good  to  the  good,  and  only 
evil  to  the  wicked.  The  most  we  can  say  is,  that 
the  good,  on  the  whole,  are  more  likely  to  prosper, 
and  the  wicked  to  fail ;  and  that,  not  from  any  provi- 
dential interference  for  or  against,  but  through  the  in- 
herent strength  of  the  former  and  the  fatal  disability  of 
the  latter.  Further  than  this,  the  moral  government 
of  God,  which  forms  so  essential  an  article  of  faith, 
does  not  approve  itself,  does  not  reveal  itself,  to  the 
understanding.  God,  in  his  character  of  moral  gov- 
ernor and  judge,  as  in  every  other  predicate  affirmed 
by  religion,  is  inaccessible  to  all  attempts  of  the  under- 
standing to  verify  his  attributes. 

So,  whether  we  seek  him  in  the  realms  of  space,  in 
the  processes  of  nature,  or  in  human  life,  God  hides 
himself  from  the  curious  intellect,  more  inscrutable 
now,  in  the  full  age  of  the  human  understanding,  than 
in  its  childhood ;  retiring  ever  farther,  the  farther  we 
advance  in  culture  and  knowledge.  To  the  early  world, 
he  seemed  separated  only  by  distance  of  space.  The 
imagination  enthroned  him  on  mountain-tops  or  above 
the  clouds.  It  was  deemed  not  impossible  that  he 
might  appear  to  the  human  eye  in  a  human  form,  and 
converse  with  mortals  face  to  face.  But  science,  which 
has  scaled  all  heights  and  sounded  all  deeps,  has  dis- 
pelled this  illusion,  and,  while  extending  indefinitely 
the  bounds  of  creation,  can  find  no  room  for  a  local 
God.     He  is  separated  from  us  now,  not  by  distance 


THE   RETREATING   GOD.  45 

of  space,  but  by  the  impossibility,  in  our  intellectual 
enlightenment,  of  forming  any  image  of  his  being  which 
reason  does  not  immediately  rebuke  as  incongruous. 
To  the  intellect,  he  is  removed  by  the  impassable  gulf 
which  yawns  between  the  finite  and  the  infinite,  be- 
tween every  organized  nature  and  uncreated  mind. 
He  hides  himself  the  more,  the  nearer  we  seem  to  ap- 
proach him  in  intelligence.  Other  mysteries  disappear 
like  spectres  of  the  night  before  the  spreading  illumina- 
tion of  science  ;  but  this  one  mystery  deepens  and  deep- 
ens with  increasing  light. 

And  let  us  be  glad  that  it  is  so ;  that  this  aboriginal 
mystery  remains,  inviolable,  impregnable,  unsearchable 
still ;  that  while  the  profane  intellect  is  removing  the' 
veil  from  so  many  a  wonder  which  its  marvellousness 
had  endeared  to  our  early  faith,  and  letting  daylight  in 
upon  so  many  a  recess  long  consecrated  to  our  imagina- 
tion by  embowering  shade,  here  still  is  a  veil  which  no 
human  intellect  will  ever  lift ;  a  covert  where  wonder 
and  awe,  and  faith,  their  offspring,  may  repose  for  ever ; 
an  idea  on  which  the  mind,  retreating  from  the  shallow- 
ness of  human  knowledge,  may  rest,  and  be  sure  that 
no  plummet  cast  by  mortal  thought  or  immortal  inquiry 
will  ever  sound  that  infinite  deep.  Man  needs  this 
mystery  for  the  health  of  his  spirit,  as  he  needs  for  his 
physical  well-being  the  sweet  intercession  of  overshad- 
owing night.  He  needs  the  relief  of  shade  for  his 
mental  eye  as  well  as  for  his  bodily.  Religion  needs 
mystery,  and  cannot  exist  without  it.  Without  mys- 
tery, it  degenerates  into  mere  mechanical  philosophy ; 
into  arithmetical  calculation ;  into  ethical  systems  that 
may  serve  to  smooth  the  outward  life,  but  exert  no 


46      RELIGION  WITHIN  THE   BOUNDS   OF  THEISM. 

quickening  power  on  the  soul.  The  tree  of  life,  like 
the  plants  of  the  earth,  needs  darkness  for  its  roots ; 
while  its  fruit-bearing  branches  rejoice  in  the  light.  It 
is  good  to  know  that  here  is  a  mystery  which  no  inqui- 
sition of  science  can  detect,  and  no  reach  of  intellectual 
vision  comprehend ;  that  the  highest  created  intelli- 
gence, searching,  soaring,  sounding  through  eternity, 
can  never  attain  to  a  theory  of  God  which  shall  cover 
all  the  dimensions  and  define  all  the  attributes  and  ex- 
haust all  the  secrets  of  his  being.  A  God  whom  the 
intellect  misrht  fathom  would  be  no  God  to  us.  Let  us 
understand  this ;  let  us  freely  admit  it,  —  admit  the 
futility  of  all  attempts  to  demonstrate  God  to  the  un- 
derstanding, to  prove  him  from  the  marvels  of  nature, 
to  establish  the  fact  of  Godhead  by  induction.  Let  us 
freely  concede  to  the  atheist,  to  the  positivist,  the  in- 
adequacy of  such  demonstration,  the  inconsequence  of 
most  of  the  reasoning  employed  for  this  end. 

There  is  no  danger  that  science  will  ever  unclasp 
man's  hold  of  this  primal  truth,  or  seduce  the  general 
heart  from  the  Being  more  assured  to  us  than  our  own  ; 
the  Being  whose  certainty  is  the  basis  and  guaranty  of 
all  certainty  beside. 

God  withdraws  from  the  speculating  intellect.  He 
will  not  be  laid  hold  of  with  scientific  inquiry ;  but  shut 
the  eye  of  speculation,  and  the  heart  soon  finds  him 
who  is  personally  related  to  every  soul.  Let  every  soul 
bless  the  never -to -be -known, — grateful,  like  the 
prophet  in  the  rock-cleft,  for  even  the  vanishing  skirts 
of  the  mystery  in  which  the  Eternal  hides,  reverently 
adoring  where  we  cannot  comprehend ;  content  to  fol- 
low where  we  cannot  fathom ;    happy  if  we  are  able 


THE   RETREATING   GOD.  47 

to  walk  by  faith  where  neither  man  nor  angel  can  ever 
walk  by  sight. 

At  the  funeral  of  Ferdusi,  says  his  biographer, 
the  Scheikh  Aboul  Kasem  refused  to  repeat  the  cus- 
tomary prayer,  because  the  deceased  had  sung  the 
praise  of  the  Magi.  The  following  night,  he  saw,  in  a 
vision,  Ferdusi  in  Paradise,  in  a  blaze  of  glory.  Being 
asked  how  he  came  to  be  thus  exalted,  he  replied,  "It 
was  because  of  that  one  verse  of  mine  in  which  I  suno^ 
the  unsearchable  God :  ^  Thou  art  the  hio^hest  and  the 
deepest.  I  know  not  what  thou  art.  Thou  art  all 
that  thou  art.'" 

Religion  would  press  science  into  her  service,  and 
compel  her  to  testify  of  theism.  But  science  has  her 
own  appointed  way  of  serving  the  truth  :  she  furnishes 
her  own  incidental  and  involuntary  illustrations  of 
Deity,  and  will  not  be  subsidized  by  religion,  nor  ren- 
der the  kind  of  testimony  which  religion  demands. 
Science  is  no  theist :  her  business  is  to  seek  the  causes 
of  things  in  the  universe  of  things,  and  not  to  ajDpeal 
to  supermundane  power.  Her  mission  and  that  of 
religion,  as  ministers  of  truth,  are  essentially  one ;  but 
the  methods  and  immediate  objects  of  the  two  are 
entirely  distinct,  and  neither  should  usurp  the  other's 
function.  The  end  of  science  is  knowledge ;  that  is, 
intellectual  possession  :  the  end  of  religion  is  worship  ; 
that  is,  intellectual  renunciation.  The  aim  of  the  one 
is  conquest;  the  aim  of  the  other  is  surrender.  Both, 
in  different  ways,  are  a  search  after  truth.  But  in 
ways  how  different !  Science  seeks  with  the  senses, 
with  the  understanding,  with  computation  and  deduc- 


48       RELIGION  WITHIN   THE   BOUNDS   OF  THEIS3I. 

tion,  with  analysis  and  hypothesis.  Religion  seeks 
with  the  trusting  heart  and  devout  aspiration.  Science 
would  fathom  all  the  realms  of  being,  would  stand  face 
to  face  with  the  final  fact,  and  write  her  eureka  on 
the  core  of  creation.  Keligion  is  content  to  bow  low 
before  an  Unknown,  Unknowable. 

Such  being  the  divergence  of  their  nature  and  func- 
tion, it  is  not  to  be  expected  that  science  and  religion 
will  ever  unite  in  one  perception.  It  is  not  to  be 
expected  that  religion  will  attain  to  scientific  demon- 
stration of  her  convictions ;  it  is  not  to  be  expected 
that  science  will  ever  appropriate  those  convictions  as 
scientific  trutli.  It  is  possible  that  a  higher  synthesis 
may  one  day  unite  them  in  a  new  and  better  bond  than 
the  old  infructuous  union  which  theology  has  sought  to 
enforce :  meanwhile,  let  each  pursue  its  separate  way. 
Let  science  have  her  rule  in  the  heights  and  the  deeps, 
wherever  she  can  reach,  and  establish  her  sway.  Let 
her  reconstruct  the  genesis  of  nature,  lay  over  again 
the  courses  of  the  planet,  and  lean  her  ladder  against 
the  stars.  But,  after  all,  it  is  faith  that  builds  the 
house  where  life  and  honor  love  to  dwell.  All  great 
works,  all  noble  births,  all  that  is  most  precious  and 
saving  in  life,  —  scriptures,  temples,  hymns,  —  all 
beautiful  arts,  all  saintly  and  heroic  lives,  all  grand  and 
sublime  things,  are  her  offspring.  When  faith  lan- 
guishes, civilization  droops,  empires  perish.  When 
faith  revives  in  some  new  advent  of  the  Spirit,  new 
empires  start  into  life.  The  course  of  ascending  his- 
tory is  tracked  by  her  benefactions  ;  of  history  descend- 
ing, by  her  hurts.  Her  monuments,  in  distant  lands 
and  ages  past,  are  honored  in  their  decays  and  draw 


THE   RETEEATIKG   GOD.  49 

the  wondering  eyes.  These  are  the  things  which  men 
traverse  earth  and  sea  to  behold,  —  the  pyramids  that 
still  point  heavenward  after  the  lapse  of  four  thousand 
years,  the  stupendous  aisles  of  Philas,  the  unerring 
sculptures  of  Athens,  the  sacred  dust  of  Palestine,  the 
newer  marvels  of  Christian  Rome.  All  these  are  the 
offspring  of  faith  :  they  consecrate  the  world.  Curiosity 
traces  them  out  in  every  remote  corner  of  the  globe. 
Science  waits  upon  them  with  eager  ministries ;  traffic 
and  travel  are  accommodated  to  them ;  railroads  are 
built  to  convey  pilgrims  to  their  sites ;  at  their  crum- 
bling altar-stones,  devotion  rekindles  her  fires. 

Shall  men  wander  so  far  to  behold  what  faith  has 
done  in  time  past,  and  despise  the  power  of  faith  in  the 
present  ?  That  wonder  -  working  power  which  laid 
the  entablature  of  Denderah,  and  sprung  the  arches  of 
Cologne,  is  no  antique,  no  recluse  of  the  middle  age, 
no  native  of  Egypt  or  Eome,  but  cosmopolitan  and 
modern  as  the  sun.  God  her  father,  and  Humanity 
her  mother,  survive  all  change ;  and  the  constant  off- 
spring works  hitherto,  and  will  work. 


n. 

THE  ADVANCING  GOD. 


n. 

.     THE  ADVANCING  GOD. 

It  belongs  to  the  nature  of  God,  or,  what  is  practically 
the  same  thing,  it  belongs  to  our  idea  of  God,  that  he 
should  make  himself  known.  Our  idea  of  God  in- 
cludes the  Creator.  *  An  uncreative  God  is  no  God, 
since  God  is  conceivable  only  as  the  correlate  of  a  finite 
world.  But  creation  —  especially  the  creation  of  con- 
scious, intelligent  beings  —  implies  conscious  intelli- 
gence in  the  Creator.  And,  if  God  be  supposed  self- 
conscious,  he  must  be  supposed  to  will  the  reflection  of 
himself  in  intelligent  minds.*  Or,  to  rest  our  thesis 
on  more  practical  ground,  if  God  be  that  moral  Sover- 
eign whom  we  suppose,  it  follows  that  the  subjects  of 
his  rule  must  be  made  acquainted  with  the  Lord  of  their 
alleo'iance. 

The  necessity  of  revelation  is  thus  grounded  in  the 
very  idea  of  God. 

Assuming,  then,  that  God,  by  his  nature,  is  self- 
revealins:,  and  must  make  himself  known  to  intellio;ent 
beings,  what  will  be  the  method  and  conditions  of  that 


*  This  statement  perhaps  is  too  condensed.  God,  conscious  of  his  per- 
fection, must  will  the  recognition  of  that  perfection  in  intelligent  beings,  as 
their  ideal  and  way  to  a  blessed  life,  —  that  being  the  only  supposable  end 
of  the  moral  creation. 

[53] 


54      RELIGION  WITHIN   THE   BOUNDS   OF   THEISM. 

revelation?  In  what  way  can  we  suppose  that  God 
will  declare  himself,  his  will  and  his  truth,  to  man? 
Let  anv  one  fiixure  to  himself  a  demonstration  that 
would  satisfy  all  mankind  of  the  being  and  attributes 
of  God,  —  of  such  a  God  as  theism  represents,  —  what 
will  he  propose  ?  Shall  we  say  that  some  stupendous 
prodigy  would  best  accomplish  that  result  ?  —  some  ex- 
hibition so  far  tmnscending  human  power  and  skill, 
that  all  who  beheld  it  should  be  forced  to  confess  a 
superhuman  agent;  therewith,  some  clear,  emphatic  an- 
nunciation of  the  truth  to  be  received  ?  —  an  appari- 
tion in  the  sky,  with  accompanying  voice  out  of  the 
heavens?  —  a  scroll  cast  down  upon  the  earth,  or  tab- 
lets, received  amid  lightnings  and  thunders  on  some 
mountain-top,  inscribed  with  the  lessons  of  Deity? 
Somewhat  after  this  foshion  would  be,  I  suppose,  the 
first  conception  of  a  revelation  from  God.  Such,  in 
fact,  was  the  Hebrew  idea.  But  closer  attention  will 
convince  every  one  who  reflects  on  the  subject,  that  no 
such  portent  could  serve  as  a  permanent  communica- 
tion, valid  to  all  generations,  from  God  to  man.  Its 
efhcacy,  at  the  most,  would  be  confined  to  the  sphere 
in  which  it  occurred  and  to  those  who  witnessed  it,  or 
their  immediate  offspring.  Beyond  that  sphere,  and 
beyond  the  experience  of  eye-witnesses  and  the  children 
of  eye-witnesses,  it  would  soon  become  an  incredible 
tradition,  a  legendary  myth,  an  old  wives'  fable,  which 
the  critical  understanding,  unable  to  adjust  it  with  other 
experiences,  would  unfailingly  set  aside. 

Or,  if  we  suppose  the  revealing  portent  to  be  a 
stated  permanent  wonder,  it  would  soon  cease  to  be 
a  wonder  at  all;   it  would  take  its  place  among  the 


THE   ADVAXCrS'G   GOD.  55 

forms  and  processes  of  daily  nature,  and  be  regarded 
with  no  deeper  attention,  and  no  livelier  emotion,  than 
sunrise  and  sunset  or  the  rainbow  or^the  moon's  phases. 
For  what  indeed  is  universal  nature,  —  this  ancient 
frame  of  earth  and  sky,  with  its  stated  wonders,  its 
solemn  shows,  its  serviceable  forces,  its  unfathomable 
deeps  and  golden  fires,  its  august  days  and  refulgent 
nights,  —  what  is  it  but  just  that  portent,  —  a  present 
and  pressing  demonstration  of  the  living  God?  What 
stronger  demonstration  can  there  be?  what  prodigy 
more  astounding?  If  they  believe  not  in  sunrise  and 
sunset,  in  summer  and  winter,  in  earth  and  sky,  neither 
will  they  believe  though  an  angel  stood  in  the  sun,  and 
proclaimed  the  fact  of  Deity,  or  though  the  stars  were 
constellated  into  runes  that  should  spell  the  sacred 
name.  Xo  prodigy  can  reveal  God,  for  the  reason 
that  prodigies  can  only  appeal  to  the  senses ;  and  the 
strongest  demonstration  of  God  to  the  senses  is  already 
given  in  the  universe  as  it  passes  before  our  eyes. 

Yet  this  demonstration  has  never  sufficed  to  convey 
the  knowledge  of  God  to  minds  unenlightened  by  other 
revelation.  AVe  know  how,  age  after  age,  the  earth, 
as  it  traversed  the  annual  round,  had  clothed  itself  with 
annual  splendors  ;  how  bloom  and  hoarfrost  had  chased 
each  other  around  the  belted  Sflobe,  and  sunrise  and 
sunset  balanced  their  pomps,  and  the  heavens  declared 
the  glory  of  God  ;  how  day  unto  day  had  spoken  his 
word,  and  night  unto  night  had  shown  his  wisdom ; 
and  yet  how  many  ages  had  elapsed  before  that  word 
was  understood,  or  that  wisdom  perceived?  And  we 
know  how  small  a  portion  of  the  race,  comparatively 
speaking,  has  even  yet  seized  the  idea  of  God,  —  of  the 


56       RELIGION   WITHIN   THE   BOUNDS   OF   THEISM. 

only  God.  It  is  plain  that  the  senses  have  no  knowl- 
edge of  God,  nor,  through  the  senses,  the  understand- 
ins: ;  althousrh, — the  idea  once  started  in  the  mind,  both 
sense  and  understanding  may  nourish  and  confirm  it. 
By  no  prodigy  does  God  reveal  himself,  nor  by  any 
external  demonstration. 

Revelation  is  not  external,  but  internal.  Internal  in 
the  first  instance  ;  then,  in  a  secondary  sense  and  degree, 
it  may  become,  as  personal  or  ecclesiastical  authority, 
external. 

The  first  revelation  of  God  is  a  revelation  to  the 
moral  sense.  For  what  is  it  in  God  that  is  nearest  to 
man,  and  which  man  is  most  concerned  to  know?  Not 
his  creative  power,  not  the  fact  of  creatorship,  but  the 
moral  archetype,  the  moral  ideal,  which,  received  by 
the  conscience,  becomes  the  moral  law.  If  God  were 
merely  omnipotent  force  or  transcendent  skill ;  if  all 
that  could  be  said  of  him  were,  that  "  he  can  create  and 
he  destroy,"  or  that  the  universe  is  his  handiwork,  it 
would  matter  little  whether  we  knew  him  or  knew  him 
not ;  it  would  matter  little  whether  the  universe  were 
conceived  as  the  product  of  a  single  will  or  of  many 
wills,  or  whether  as  a  self-existent  power.  What  it 
really  concerns  us  to  know  of  God,  is,  not  that  he 
made  the  worlds,  but  that  he  is  justice  and  truth  and 
holiness  and  love.  And  of  this  the  evidence  is  not 
external,  but  internal.  Nature  does  not  furnish  it. 
Nature  knows  nothing  of  holiness,  —  has  no  perception, 
exhibits  no  trace,  of  the  moral  law.  "The  depth  saith. 
It  is  not  in  me ;  and  the  sea  saith,  It  is  not  with  me." 
Man  would  never  have  inferred  it  from  the  visible  crea- 
tion, until  it  was  first  revealed  to  him  by  a  voice  within. 


THE  ADVANCING   GOD.  57 

Some  elect  individual  of  rare  endowments  and  ex- 
ceptional moral  natm*e,  living  in  the  midst  of  poly- 
theisms and  wild  superstitions,  reflecting  on  the  facts 
of  consciousness,  perceives  in  himself  a  law  which  im- 
pels him,  in  spite  of  inclination  and  passion,  to  choose 
the  right  and  refuse  the  wrong.  This  law  he  refers 
to  the  Author  of  his  being,  and  concludes  that  the  Au- 
thor of  his  being  is  not  mere  power  and  cunning,  but  a 
holy  Will,  a  moral  Governor  and  Judge.  This  is  the 
first  revelation  of  Godhead ;  for,  until  God  is  known  as 
moral  ideal,  he  is  not  known  at  all.  Whatever  bears 
the  name  of  Deity  previous  to  that,  is  fetish  or  myth, 
and  lies  without  the  pale  of  theism  and  revelation. 

In  the  mental  process  which  I  have  described,  it  is 
not  necessary,  nor  is  it  possible,  to  draw  the  line  be- 
tween the  spontaneous  action  of  the  individual  mind, 
and  the  action  upon  it  of  the  mind  of  God,  — between 
reflection  and  inspiration.  The  vulgar  idea  of  revela- 
tion as  a  purely  external  communication  supposes  in 
the  human  subject  no  other  agency  than  obedient  recep- 
tion of  some  truth  or  command  conveyed  from  without 
by  an  audible  voice  or  visible  sign.  It  is  not  enough, 
in  the  view  of  this  idea,  that  Moses  experiences  within 
himself  an  impulse  which  he  interprets  as  divine  com- 
mission ;  it  is  not  enough  that  he  is  thus,  by  the  wit- 
ness in  the  heart,  divinely  called.  God  must  appear  to 
him  externally ;  he  must  hear  a  voice ;  he  must  see  an 
apparition  which  represents  God  in  person.  Christian 
thouo^ht  has  out2:rown  such  fancies.  All  direct  revela- 
tion  is  internal ;  and,  in  that  revelation,  reflection  and 
inspiration  combine.  The  mind  is  not  a  passive  re- 
cipient, but  an  active,  co-operating  power.     In  every 


58       RELIGION  WITHIN  THE   BOUNDS   OF  THEISM. 

original  intuition  of  the  mind,  there  is  something  divine  ^ 
and  in  all  inspiration  there  is  human  co-agency,  volun- 
tary effort,  intense  thought,  meditation  musmg  till  the 
fire  burns. 

When  therefore  certain  truths  are  said  to  be  revealed, 
or  given  by  inspiration  of  God,  we  are  not  to  under- 
stand that  they  are  given,  so  to  speak,  bodily ;  that 
they  are  put  into  the  mind,  or  breathed  into  the  mind, 
from  vrithout,  in  distinct  propositions.  We  are  to  un- 
derstand, rather,  a  state  of  mental  exaltation,  a  quick- 
ening of  the  mental  faculties,  whereby  the  prophet  or 
seer  arrives  at  perceptions  beyond  the  reach  of  ordinary 
powers  or  ordinary  states  of  mind.  This  mental  ex- 
altation, this  quickening  of  the  powers,  is  inspiration, 
the  divine  Spirit  co-operating  with  and  re-enforcing  the 
action  of  the  mind.  And  this  is  revelation ;  the  un- 
veiling of  hidden  truth  by  quick  prophetic  insight ; 
the  intuition  of  the  Spirit  that  "  searcheth  all  things, 
even  the  deep  things  of  God." 

The  prime  condition,  the  one  indispensable  prere- 
quisite, of  all  revelation  is  sincerity,  entire  surrender 
of  the  mind  to  the  leadings  of  the  Spirit.  The  truth 
comes  only  to  such  as  seek  it  with  perfect  simplicity 
and  singleness  of  purpose,  without  pre -occupation, 
without  conceit.  Only  to  such  does  God  reveal  himself. 
On  the  other  hand,  these  elect  souls,  these  seers  and 
prophets,  may  be  supposed  to  be  specially  endowed 
and  qualified  by  God  to  become  the  oracles  and  organs 
of  spiritual  truth.  With  the  strictest  propriety,  there- 
fore, they  are  said  to  be  "called,"  or,  considered  in  re- 
lation to  their  fellow-men  and  their  earthly  work,  to  be 
"  sent,"  by  God. 


/ 


THE   ADVANCING  GOD.  59 

If,  now,  it  be  asked  how  revelation  is  to  be  discrimi- 
nated from  mere  philosophic  speculation,  I  answer, 
First,  by  its  practical  character,  its  sensuous,  popular 
handling  of  the  deepest  questions  and  dearest  concerns 
of  the  soul.  The  truths  of  revelation  are  no  meta- 
physic  conceptions,  no  labored  inductions,  no  analytic 
subtleties,  no  abstract  reasonings,  which  can  only  be 
expressed  in  abstruse,  scholastic  phraseology,  but  plain, 
emphatic  enunciations  of  truths  concerning  God  and 
man,  duty,  destiny,  and  human  well-being ;  such  as  the 
humblest  and  most  uncultured  can  appreciate  and  ap- 
propriate, and  turn  to  use.  Plato  and  Plotinus,  Spinosa 
and  Hegel,  speak  only  through  the  medium  of  books  to 
scholars,  —  here  and  there  a  scattered  few.  Moses  and 
Paul,  through  the  oral  circulation  of  their  word,  ad- 
dress themselves  to  kindreds  and  nations.  Philosophy 
concerns  itself  with  intellectual  and  theoretical  aspects 
and  relations  ;  revelation,  with  practical.  All  its  utter- 
ances have  a  moral  bearing :  they  point  to  some  practi- 
cal use,  some  work  to  be  performed,  some  saving 
discipline,  some  rule  of  life,  some  peril  to  be  shunned, 
some  evil  to  be  put  away,  some  prize  to  be  secured, 
some  heavenly  consolation.  God  in  revelation  is  pre- 
sented in  no  theosophic  formula,  —  as  abstract  Deity, 
Soul  of  the  world,  the  one  universal  Substance,  or 
however  speculation  may  strive  to  express  the  divine 
nature,  —  but  in  personal,  practical  relations ;  as  Fa- 
ther, Ruler,  Judge.  Not  the  God  of  speculation,  but 
the  God  of  experience,  personally  present,  and  personally 
related  to  every  soul. 

Another  criterion  of  revelation,  distinguishing  it  from 
mere  philosophy,  is  authority,  —  the  authority  it  gives 


60      RELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

to  the  Teacher  who  first  declares  its  truths,  the  authority 
with  which  those  truths  are  clothed,  as  uttered  by  him. 
It  was  said  of  Jesus  by  his  contemporaries,  that  he 
**  spoke  as  one  having  authority,  and  not  as  the  scribes," 
-  —  not  as  the  learned  and  philosophic  of  his  time. 
They  felt  that  here  was  something  more  than  learning 
or  cleverness  or  mental  ingenuity.  In  these  utterances, 
there  was  no  casuistry  or  cunning,  and  no  dialectic 
prowess,  but  real  insight,  direct  intuition  of  the  truth  ; 
hence,  rightful  assurance,  and  the  weight  which  that 
assurance  unfailingly  gives.  Jesus,  says  Renan,  did  not 
^rgue  with  his  disciples  ;  he  did  not  preach  his  opinions  ; 
he  preached  himself.  This  is  the  impression  which 
revelation  makes,  and  revelation  only,  in  that  degree. 
The  character,  no  doubt,  is  a  part  of  this  effect.  The 
moral  pre-eminence  which  marks  the  true  prophet,  his 
sanctity  of  life,  is  one  ingredient  in  his  authority.  I 
can  hardly  conceive  of  a  high  degree  of  spiritual  insight 
associated  with  great  moral  defects.  But  moral  excel- 
lence, as  seen  in  the  manners  and  the  life,  is  not  the 
true  or  chief  source  of  this  authority.  One  can  easily 
imagine  great  purity  of  life,  a  character  unblemished, 
and  abounding  in  all  the  virtues,  without  much  insight, 
and,  consequently,  without  authority.  It  would  not  be 
difficult  to  name  individuals,  among  the  saints  of  his- 
tory, whose  life  was  blameless,  and  whose  virtues  un- 
surpassed;  but  whose  opinions,  notwithstanding,  carry 
no  weiffht, — who  have  no  authoritv  in  matters  of  belief. 
I  find  no  fault  in  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  or  Charles 
Borromeo,  or  Philij^  Neri ;  but  their  views  and  convic- 
tions on  spiritual  topics  would  not  influence  my  faith. 
Moral  superiority  there  must  be  in  the  organs  of  revela- 


THE  ADVANCING  GOD.  61 

tion;  but  moral  superiority,  in  this  connection,  means 
something  more  than  blameless  manners  and  a  virtuous 
life.  It  means  a  superior  nature  :  it  includes  intellect- 
ual power,  but  intellectual  subordinate  to  moral.  It  is 
nearly  related,  if  not  identical  with,  what,  in  its  intel- 
lectual manifestations,  in  poetry  and  art  and  the  con- 
duct of  affairs,  we  call  genius.  It  includes  that,  but 
with  it  unites  a  moral  intensity  which  genius  lacks.  It 
is  genius  adopted  by  the  Spirit  of  God  into  heavenly 
fellowship,  and  consecrated  to  heavenly  uses. 

In  a  rude  and  uncritical  age  or  population,  the  pro- 
phet who  appears  as  the  organ  of  revelation  will  be  a 
reputed  worker  of  miracles.  Whether  he  actually  per- 
form them  or  not,  he  will  have  the  credit  of  miraculous 
works.  For  this,  in  the  popular  judgment  which  dei- 
fies material  power  and  exalts  material  phenomena  as 
God's  chief  witnesses,  is  the  test  of  revelation,  the  only 
authentic  proof  and  warrant  of  divine  authority.  "What 
sisrn  showest  thou  ?  "  and  "  Show  us  a  sio'n  from  Hea- 
ven,"  is  the  popular  demand.  On  the  contrary,  in  an 
age  of  scientific  culture,  of  critical  investigation,  the 
reality  of  such  performances  will  be  disputed ;  and  not 
only  so,  but  the  very  allegation  of  miraculous  works,  in 
the  judgment  of  some,  will  discredit  the  revelation  and 
the  prophet  of  whose  truth  and  claims  they  are  cited  as 
proofs. 

The  two  positions, — the  popular  and  the  scientific, 
—  it  seems  to  me,  are  equally  erroneous.  To  say  that 
revelation  is  impossible  without  miracle,  or  that  miracle 
is  the  only  valid  proof  of  revelation,  is  inverting  the  di- 
vine order.  It  is  subordinating  the  greater  to  the  less. 
The  prophet's  intuition  of  the  truth  is  more  than  any 


62       RELIGION   WITHIN   THE   BOUNDS    OF   THEISM. 

feat  which  he  may  perform  in  the  world  of  sense. 
Truth  is  a  right  relation  between  the  human  and  the 
divine.  To  see  the  truth  is  to  see  God ;  to  live  the  truth 
is  to  be  like  God :  and  he  who  effects  that  vision  and 
that  likeness  performs  the  greatest  of  all  works,  greater 
than  healing  the  sick  or  raising  the  dead.  And  if  it  be 
urged  that  the  latter  is  a  necessary  condition  of  the 
former ;  that  the  prophet,  in  order  to  make  his  word 
seem  truth,  and  secure  its  entrance  into  the  mind,  must 
exhibit  superhuman  power ;  that  so  only  can  he  draw 
the  requisite  attention  to  himself  and  his  mission ;  that, 
granting  the  superhuman  power  and  granting  the  mira- 
culous work,  it  is  God  that  speaks  in  the  prophet's 
word,  and  without  this,  only  man,  —  I  reply,  in  the 
first  place,  that,  so  far  as  the  word  is  true,  it  is  God 
that  speaks  in  any  case ;  for  all  truth  is  of  God. 
And,  again,  I  maintain  that  a  candid  examination  of 
the  history  of  religion  will  show,  that,  where  miracles 
were  claimed,  the  belief  in  the  prophet  preceded  the 
belief  in  the  miracles,  and  furnished  its  chief  support; 
and  that  the  opponents  and  unbelieving  who  rejected 
the  prophet's  word  were  not  convinced  by  his  wonder- 
ful works.  "But,  though  he  had  done  so  many  mira- 
cles before  them,  yet  believed  they  not  on  him." 

But  then,  to  deny  the  possibility  of  miracle, -—that 
is,  of  any  thing  out  of  the  ordinary  course  of  human 
experience,  of  any  thing  that  may  not  be  explained  by 
laws  yet  discovered,  or  paralleled  with  ascertained  facts, 
—  appears  to  me  equally  unphilosophical.  What  right 
has  science  to  dictate  a  negative  judgment  of  this  ques- 
tion? what  right,  from  all  that  is  known,  to  determine 
all   that   can   be?      Who  will   presume   to   draw   the 


THE   ADVANCING   GOD.  63 

boundary-line  of  the  possible  ?  "  The  laws  of  nature 
cannot  be  violated."  Granted ;  but  who  claims  that 
miracle  is  a  violation  of  the  laws  of  nature  ?  And  what 
are  the  so-called  "  laws  of  nature  "  but  our  own  gener- 
alizations of  observed  facts  ?  And  what  is  tlie  so-called 
"  constancy  of  nature  "  but  the  statement,  in  objective 
terms,  of  the  limitation  of  our  experience?  And  who, 
moreover,  has  had  such  private  advices  from  the  Author 
of  nature  as  to  warrant  the  conclusion,  that  all  the 
laws  of  nature  have  been  discovered,  and  all  the  laws 
of  spirit?  and  that,  perchance,  some  unknown  law  may 
not  subsidize,  and  so  seemingly  contradict,  some  known 
one,  as  the  law  of  projectiles  seemingly  contradicts  the 
law  of  gravitation?  "A  miracle  cannot  be  proved." 
Granted.  Does  it  therefore  follow  thence  that  a  mira- 
cle cannot  be?  I  receive  no  truth  and  no  prophet  on 
the  ground  of  miracles ;  but  I  can  believe  in  a  wonder- 
working Power.  I  can  believe  that  the  man  of  God, 
in  closer  alliance  with,  and  so  partaking  more  largely 
of,  the  one  sole  Power  that  moves  and  makes  this 
world  of  shows,  may  effect  results  impossible  to  men 
of  ordinary  vision,  and  unprecedented  in  human  expe- 
rience. To  believe  the  contrary,  seems  to  me  not  very 
rational  and  not  very  cheering.  I  can  conceive,  that 
the  prophet,  through  the  might  of  the  Spirit,  shall  work 
miracles  ;  and,  to  many,  the  miracles  will  be  a  confir- 
mation of  his  mission.  But  they  will  not  be  performed 
for  that  sole  purpose :  they  will  be  the  natural  working 
of  a  spirit  in  league  with  God,  intent  on  beneficent 
ends,  and  overcoming  natural  obstacles  by  the  willing 
of  that  faith  to  which  nothing  is  impossible.  I  cannot 
conceive,  that  the  prophet  should  parade  his  wonders 


64       RELIGION   WITHIN   THE   BOUNDS   OF   THEISM. 

for  the  mere  purpose  of  drawing  attention  to  himself, 
that  he  should  say  in  effect,  "  Behold !  I  do  this  and 
that  feat  which  to  you  were  impossible  ;  therefore  what 
I  tell  you  is  true."  The  Son  of  man  repels,  as  a  devil- 
ish suggestion,  the  idea  of  amazing  the  world  by  throw- 
ing himself  from  a  pinnacle  of  the  temple. 

Finally,  revelation  and  philosophy  are  differenced  by 
their  respective  results.  Philosophy  founds  schools ; 
revelation,  churches.  Philosophy  discusses  ;  revelation 
prophesies.  The  one  has  professors ;  the  other,  con- 
fessors and  martyrs.  The  one  is  represented  by  lec- 
tureships ;  the  other,  by  sacraments.  The  one  utters 
treatises  ;  the  other.  Bibles.  Through  these,  its  pecu- 
liar products,  revelation  assumes  a  secondary  phase 
and  becomes  external,  —  what  we  call  a  religious  dis- 
pensation. Such  are  Mosaism,  Islamism,  Christianity. 
This  is  revelation  in  the  usual  popular  sense,  and  the 
only  revelation  known  to  the  mass  of  mankind.  Direct, 
internal  revelation,  in  any  degree,  is  a  rare  experience. 
A  revelation  so  emphatic  and  intense  as  to  issue  in  a 
Church,  as  to  furnish  the  ground  of  a  new  dispensation, 
has  been  the  experience  of  a  few  individuals  only  in  all 
time.  The  mass  of  mankind  must  receive  their  religion 
at  second  hand,  and  receive  it  on  historical  authority, 
as  they  receive  the  greater  part  of  all  their  knowledge. 
The  accredited  prophet,  the  Church,  the  Bible,  and 
even  perhaps  the  favorite  preacher,  the  catechism,  the 
creed  of  their  sect,  are  revelation  to  them.  Thus 
the  founders  of  religions  acquire  a  mediatorial  charac- 
ter :  they  become  interpreters  of  heavenly  mysteries, 
the  medium  of  communication  from  God  to  man  ;  in 
some  cases,  themselves  the  God  of  the  popular  religion. 


THE   ADVANCING    GOD.  65 

So  strong  a  disposition  there  is  in  man  to  interpose  a 
middle  term,  a  thiixl  person,  between  the  Supreme  and 
the  human  souL 

In  tliis  way,  then,  God  makes  himself  known,  and 
becomes  a  fact  to  human  intelligence.  Not  by  prodigy 
or  portent,  in  whirlwind  or  in  fire,  but  through  the  still 
small  voice  of  the  moral  sentiment  in  man,  he  advances 
from  the  unimaginable  secret  of  his  being  into  such 
cognition  as  the  finite  mind  can  have  of  the  Eternal. 
On  some  retired  soul,  intensely  musing,  far  back  in  the 
unknown  past,  first  dawned  the  great  Idea  which  fills 
and  rules  this  earthly  sphere ;  the  idea  whose  birth  in 
the  human  mind  was  the  birth  of  an  intelligible,  spirit- 
ual world  from  the  dark,  wild  chaos  of  polytheism ;  the 
idea  which  alone  gives  being  a  plan,  creation  a  purpose, 
a  meaning  to  life,  to  holy  aspiration  an  adequate  goal. 
Once  risen  on  the  world,  the  quickening,  saving  idea 
did  not  set ;  but,  when  it  waxed  dim,  in  the  dim,  con- 
fused ages  of  nature-worship  and  priestly  oppression 
which  compose  the  cycles  of  primeval  history ;  fresh 
inspiration  was  breathed  upon  it,  new  musing  souls 
rekindled  its  beam,  new  revelations  confirmed  the  old ; 
—  new  revelations  and  better,  clearer,  fuller,  as  human 
progress  opened  the  mind,  and  reflection  deepened 
with  advancino^  life.  For  revelation  is  a  thins:  of 
degrees ;  the  God  of  Abraham,  of  Isaac,  and  of  Ja- 
cob, though  sacred  and  dear  as  the  morning-star  of 
theism,  is  not  the  God  of  the  Isaiahs,  still  less  the 
God  who  is  a  spirit,  to  be  worshipped  in  spirit  and 
truth. 

The  revealing  word  was  always  in  the  world;  the 

5 


66       EELIGION   WITHIN   THE   BOUNTDS   OF   THEISM. 

receptive  mind,  not  always.  "He  came  unto  his  own, 
and  his  own  received  him  not."  But,  finally,  they  did 
receive  him,  —  some  with  such  power  and  fulness  as  to 
be,  in  the  high  apostolic  sense,  the  "sons  of  God." 
And  those  who  received  the  light  in  its  fulness  dispensed 
it  to  others  :  they  became  the  lights  of  their  time,  — 
sages,  prophets,  servants  of  God,  to  whom  and  through 
whom  "he  revealed  his  secret."  From  them  issued 
streams  which  outlived  them ;  which  passed  into  say- 
ings, laws  ;  which  became  institutions,  became  churches, 
became  fixed  traditions,  descending  from  generation  to 
generation.  And  all  such  traditions,  however  hardened 
and  sapless  with  the  lapse  of  time  they  become,  attest 
some  former  inspiration  which  flooded  the  soul,  as  the 
fossil-shell  on  the  mountain-side  attests  the  swelling  of 
the  waters  in  some  foregone  spasm  of  the  globe. 

The  fruit  of  revelation  is  tradition ;  but  revelation 
itself,  in  its  origin  and  essence,  is  sjm'itual  insight. 
The  different  terms  express  two  different  aspects  of  one 
fact.  Spiritual  insight  is  the  human  aspect ;  revela- 
tion, the  divine.  But  spiritual  insight  is  something  far 
different  from  induction  or  ratiocination.  The  knowl- 
edge of  God  is  not  a  conclusion  of  the  understanding, 
but  an  intuition  of  the  moral  sense.  Theism  never 
originated  in  that  way.  The  being  of  God  would  never 
be  inferred  from  the  constitution  of  things,  without  the 
idea  pre-existing  in  the  mind.*     There  is  no  natural 


*  The  uttermost  that  legitimate  induction  can  establish,  on  this  basis,  is 
intelligent  Power,  —  the  so-called  "First  Cause"  to  which  speculation  refers 
the  creation  of  the  world.  But  that  intelligent  "First  Cause"  is  not  the 
God  of  religion.  There  is  nothing  in  it  of  ethical  or  religious  import.  The 
argument  from  design  may  suggest  a  Designer,  but  can  never  amount  to 


THE  ADVANCING  GOD.  67 

religion,  in  the  sense  of  a  theism,  born  of  the  understand- 
ing ;  but  the  being  of  God  is  given  in  die  moral  nature 
of  man.  There,  if  anywhere,  the  Eternal  reveals  him- 
self from  time  to  time,  in  successive  communications, 
to  such  as  are  able  to  divine  his  secret. 

Revelation  is  a  tiling  of  degrees  ;  yet  all  revelation  is 
essentially  the  same.  All  revelation  is  in  man  and 
through  man.  It  is  not  an  unearthly  voice  speaking  to 
us  out  of  the  clouds  :  it  is  not  an  angelic  apparition ; 
but  always  the  voice  of  a  brother  man  that  instructs 
and  exhorts.  And  that  voice  is  not  the  revelation  it- 
self, but  only  its  witness  and  declaration.  The  true 
revelation  is  internal.  The  only  effectual  knowledge 
of  God  is  the  private  experience  of  the  individual  soul. 
The  earliest  prophet  of  Jehovism  saw  this  and  confessed 
it,  appealing  from  his  own  written  law  to  the  elder 
tables  of  the  heart :  "  For  this  commandment  is  not 
hidden  from  thee ;  neither  is  it  afar  off.  It  is  not  in 
the  heavens,  that  thou  shouldst  say.  Who  will  go  up  for 

demonstration  of  a  God  Cicero,  arguing  against  the  atheism  of  Epicurus, 
affirms  it  to  be  just  as  credible  that  the  letters  which  compose  the  "  Iliad,"  if 
thrown  promiscuously  into  the  air,  should  come  to  the  ground  an-anged  in 
that  order,  as  it  is  that  the  world  was  made  by  chance.  The  argument  from 
design  has  never  been  better  stated;  but  Cicero  was  no  monotheist,  and 
Cicero's  doctrine,  such  as  it  was,  created  the  argument,  not  the  argument 
the  doctrine.  The  Esquimaux  told  the  missionary,  that  he  had  often  re- 
flected how  a  kadjah,  or  canoe,  with  all  its  tackle,  does  not  come  of  itself, 
but  requires  to  be  constructed  with  much  care  and  skill ;  and  how  a  bird  is 
a  far  more  wonderful  contrivance  than  the  best  kadjak:  and  yet  the 
bird  is  no  man's  workmanship.  I  bethought  me,  he  said,  that  a  bird  pro- 
ceeds from  its  parents,  and  they  from  their  parents;  but  there  must  have 
been  some  first  parents.  Whence  did  they  proceed?  I  concluded  that 
there  must  be  some  one  who  is  able  to  make  them  and  every  thing  else,  — 
some  one  more  knowing  and  powerful  than  the  wisest  man.  So  reasoned 
the  Esquimaux ;  and  yet  he  had  never  arrived  at  the  idea  of  God.  A  cun- 
ning artificer,  surpassing  the  cunning  of  men,  but  no  God. 


G8       RELIGION   WITHIN   THE   BOUNDS    OF   THEISM. 

US  to  heaven,  and  bring  it  down  to  us,  that  we  may 
hear  it  and  do  it?  Neither  is  it  beyond  the  sea,  that 
thou  shouldst  say,  Who  shall  go  over  the  sea  for  us, 
and  bring  it  to  us,  that  we  may  hear  it  and  do  it?  But 
the  word  is  very  nigh  thee,  in  thy  mouth  and  in  thy 
heart,  that  thou  may  est  hear  it  and  do  it." 


m. 

THE  EEGENT  GOD. 


in. 

THE  REGENT   GOD. 

All  who  believe  in  the  being  of  God  beheve  in  a 
divine  Providence  of  some  kind  in  the  natural  as  in  the 
moral  world ;  but  opinions  vary  as  to  the  nature  and 
method  of  its  action.  Some  believe  it  a  rule  of  fixed 
laws,  established  in  the  beginning,  inherent  in  nature, 
and  self-acting.  Others  believe  it  to  be  partly  a  rule 
of  fixed  laws,  and  partly  an  immediate  action  of  the 
divine  will.  Others  still  believe  it  to  be  wholly  the  im- 
mediate action  of  the  divine  will.  The  first  of  these 
opinions  makes  Providence  to  consist  of  a  pre-adjust- 
ment  of  the  universe,  dating  from  the  first  commence- 
ment of  its  existence,  and  so  complete  as  to  compre- 
hend every  agency  and  every  event,  —  the  world's 
entire  history  from  beginning  to  end.  It  makes  the 
world  a  perfect  machine,  —  a  machine  directed  by  God, 
who  bears  the  same  relation  to  it  that  an  engineer  does 
to  the  engine  which  he  invented  and  superintends. 
The  second  makes  Providence  to  consist  in  occasional 
interposition,  where  the  course  of  nature,  as  it  is  called, 
i.e.,  the  ordinary  agencies  at  work  in  the  world,  the 
regular  order  of  events,  would  otherwise  fail  to  accom- 
plish the  desired  ends,  or  where  those  agencies  would 

[71] 


72       RELIGION   WITHIN   THE   BOUNDS    OF   THEISM. 

result  in  consequences  to  be  avoided.  It  makes  the 
world  a  machine,  but  not  a  perfect  one,  —  a  machine 
which  requires  regulation,  adjustment,  alteration.  The 
third  makes  Providence  to  consist  in  those  very  agen- 
cies which  compose  the  order  of  nature  and  the  regular 
course  of  events,  —  a  present,  immediate,  continuous 
action  of  Deity  in  every  event  that  takes  place.  It 
makes  the  world  no  machine  at  all,  but  a  living  organ- 
ism pervaded  by  the  spirit  of  God,  a  constant  and  im- 
mediate expression  of  the  divine  mind.  I  propose  to 
examine  these  different  theories,  with  a  view  to  deter- 
mine the  true  idea  of  divine  Providence  in  human 
affairs. 

1.  The  first  is  the  theory  of  those  who  suppose  that 
the  world  is  governed  by  general  and  fixed  laws,  — 
laws  impressed  upon  the  universe  in  the  beginning  of 
creation,  — by  which  it  now  pursues  its  course  and  ful- 
fils its  functions.  Tliey  suppose  that  the  act  of  creation 
embraced  a  plan  or  scheme  of  operation,  wliich  the 
universe,  once  set  in  motion,  has  followed  ever  since,  as 
a  piece  of  human  mechanism  fulfils  of  itself  the  func- 
tions intended  and  provided  for  in  its  construction. 
Every  event  that  takes  place  is  the  necessary  conse- 
quence of  these  laws,  and  could  not  be  other  than  it  is. 
The  theory  does  not  suppose  that  every  event  was  spe- 
cially willed  by  the  Author  of  the  universe  :  only  the 
laws  and  processes  which  produced  it  are  so  willed. 
The  laws  of  the  universe  are  not  aimed  at  particular 
cases,  but  at  general  results.  In  other  words,  the 
world  is  governed,  not  by  partial,  but  by  general  laws. 
The  action  of  tnese  laws  will  sometimes  result  in  dis- 
astrous   consequences   to   individuals,    especially  when 


THE    REGENT    GOD.  73 

applied  by  man  to  his  purposes,  —  when  human  free- 
agency  comes  in  as  one  of  the  factors  in  determining 
the  course  of  events.  But  these  disasters,  it  is  argued, 
are  rare  exceptions,  and  do  not  materially  affect  the 
beneficent  design  and  operation  of  these  laws.  They 
are  designed  to  produce,  and  do  produce,  the  greatest 
possible  good  on  the  whole.  They  could  not  be  other 
than  they  are  without  diminishing  the  amount  of  good 
in  the  world.  Any  change  in  the  constitution  and 
government  of  the  universe,  by  which  these  disasters 
could  be  avoided,  would  cause  more  evil  than  it  would 
cure.  The  vast  preponderance  of  good  in  the  world 
demonstrates  the  wisdom  of  the  present  arrangement, 
and,  in  spite  of  occasional,  unavoidable  exceptions, 
vindicates  the  general  beneficence  of  divine  rule  by 
fixed  and  universal  laws. 

The  objection  to  this  theory  is,  that  it  separates  God 
from  his  works  and  makes  him,  instead  of  a  present, 
living,  inworking  power,  at  the  most,  a  mere  director 
and  overseer  of  past  creations.  It  supposes  a  God 
intensely  active  at  one  time,  and  comparatively  inactive 
ever  since ;  exhausting  his  activity  in  one  original 
effort  of  creative  power,  then  ceasing  from  creation, 
and  taking  up  his  millennial  rest.  It  places  him  far 
away  in  the  past,  and  gives  us  in  effect  a  universe  with- 
out a  God.  For  what  need  of  a  God,  a  present,  living 
God,  or  what  room  for  one,  if  laws  will  suffice  for  the 
world's  governance?  —  if  the  world  once  created  and 
put  in  motion,  and  furnished  with  the  requisite  agencies 
and  adaptations,  will  thenceforth  govern  itself,  obey- 
ing, with  automatic  regularity,  the  impulse  imparted, 
and  the  laws  assigned,  to  it  by  one  original  fiat  of  crea- 


74      RELIGION  WITHIN  THE   BOUNDS   OF   THEISM. 

tive  power?  The  world,  in  this  view,  is  a  soulless, 
unconscious  mechanism,  cast  off  by  its  master,  whose 
care  of  it  was  exhausted  in  its  first  production,  and 
thenceforth  left  to  take  care  of  itself.  Suppose  that 
this  view  of  creation  could  satisfy  the  understanding ; 
suppose  it  sufficient  to  account  for  the  order  of  events, 
and  explain  the  phenomena  of  nature  and  of  life, — it 
can  never  satisfy  the  heart.  The  heart  demands  a  pres- 
ent God,  —  a  God  who  is  never  far  from  any  one  of  us  ; 
it  demands  the  immediate  presence  and  constant  care  of 
a  heavenly  Father ;  it  demands,  when  it  looks  upon  na- 
ture, to  feel  that  God  is  there,  not  in  his  laws  only,  but 
in  conscious  and  perpetual  action ;  not  in  the  sense  of  a 
Wisdom  and  a  Goodness,  embodied  in  arrangements 
contrived  and  perfected  long  ago,  as  the  mind  of  an 
artificer  may  be  said  to  present  in  the  work  of  his 
hands,  but  in  the  sense  of  a  Love  co-present  to  every 
aspect  of  nature,  and  a  Will  in  working  in  every  event 
that  takes  place.  It  demands,  in  human  life,  to  know 
that  it  is  not  abandoned  to  hard,  inevitable  laws,  and 
processes  that  act  with  unconscious  necessity,  but  to 
feel  the  guiding  hand  of  the  Shepherd  God,  in  whom 
is  no  want.  The  heart  rejects  the  theory  of  pre-estab- 
lished laws  :  it  demands  an  immediate,  personal  Provi- 
dence. 

But  neither  is  this  theory,  rightly  considered,  suffi- 
cient for  the  understanding.  It  is  based  on  a  notion, 
which,  however  plausible  it  may  seem  at  first  view,  is 
not  only  incapable  of  demonstration,  but  will  be  found, 
on  a  closer  inspection,  to  be  very  questionable.  It 
borrows  the  idea  of  a  self-acting  universe  from  those 
contrivances  of  human  workmanship,  which,  once  set 


THE   REGENT   GOD.  75 

in  motion,  by  the  interaction  of  mechanical  forces  will 
retain  that  motion,  and  perform  certain  functions,  for  a 
given  time,  without  the  aid  of  any  other  agency  than 
their  own  mechanism.  If  human  skill  can  construct  a 
machine  which  will  act  thus  by  laws  and  forces  inherent 
in  itself,  then  infinite  Wisdom,  it  is  argued,  may  con- 
struct one  which  will  do  the  same,  on  an  infinitely 
larger  scale,  for  all  time;  —  the  material  universe  is 
such  a  machine.  But  the  analogy  fails  in  one  import- 
ant particular.  Man  makes  the  machine,  but  he  does 
not  make  the  laws  and  capacities  by  which  it  acts.  He 
avails  himself  of  laws  and  caj^acities  that  are  given  in 
the  substances  he  employs.  And  what  are  those  laws 
and  capacities?  They  are  nothing  inherent  in  the  sub- 
stances themselves ;  they  are  not  attributes  of  matter. 
To  call  them  so,  may  suffice  for  practical  purposes  ;  but 
it  does  not  satisfy  reason.  Matter,  by  definition,  is 
passive  and  incapable :  it  does  not  act  of  itself,  but 
is  acted  upon.  Laws  and  capacities  are  not  attributes 
of  matter,  but  of  intelligence.  In  reality,  the  machines 
of  man's  make  are  not  self-acting,  but  are  acted  upon 
by  intelligence  ;  and  that  intelligence  is  God.  All  the 
forces  of  the  material  world  are  only  methods  of  divine 
action  ;  and  what  we  call  the  laws  of  the  material  world 
are  only  a  phrase  to  denote  the  regularity  and  usualness 
of  that  action.  When  I  say  that  the  law  of  gravita- 
tion causes  a  body  thrown  into  the  air  to  return  to  the 
ground,  I  do  not  express  a  property  of  bodies,  but  a 
simple  fact,  —  a  fact  which  the  term  "  gravitation  "  des- 
ignates, but  does  not  explain  ;  of  which  no  explanation 
can  be  given  but  the  immediate  volition  of  God.  Thus 
the  inference  drawn  from  human  contrivances  in  favor 


76      RELIGION  WITHIN   THE  BOUNDS   OF  THEISM. 

of  a  self-acting  universe  is  a  fallacy.  The  idea  of  such 
a  universe  has  no  foundation  in  analogy,  or  in  any 
thinsf  we  know  of  the  nature  of  thins^s. 

2.  The  second  theory  of  Providence  supposes  it  to 
consist  partly  in  pre-established,  general  laws,  and 
partly  in  occasional  interpositions  of  divine  power  for 
the  sake  of  certain  ends  not  included  in  the  original 
plan  of  creation,  and  which  general  laws  would  not 
have  accomplished.  The  latter  method  is  called  a  par- 
ticular Providence ;  the  other,  a  general  one.  Those 
who  believe  in  such  interposition  find  examples  of  it  in 
remarkable  escapes  from  danger,  in  instances  of  special 
good-fortune,  or  in  signal  retributions  —  "judgments," 
as  they  are  called  —  incurred  by  evil-doers.  This  hy- 
pothesis is  even  more  objectionable  than  the  first.  It 
adds  to  the  notion  of  pre-established  laws  and  a  self- 
acting  universe,  which  we  have  seen  to  be  groundless, 
the  greater  difficulty  of  ineffectual  contrivance.  It  sup- 
poses, like  the  other,  a  mechanized  nature  ;  but  supposes 
an  imperfect  mechanism,  —  a  mechanism  which  fails  to 
accomplish  all  that  should  be  accomplished,  which  re- 
quires constant  addition,  correction,  and  improvement. 
It  supposes  a  Contriver  whose  contrivances  come  into 
collision  with  his  own  will,  a  God  whose  providence  is 
in  conflict  with  his  own  works.  Moreover,  it  gives  the 
providence  of  God  the  appearance  of  arbitrariness  and 
■partiality.  If  here  one  is  rescued  from  peril,  why  is 
another,  equally  deserving,  permitted  to  perish?  If 
one  sinner  is  overtaken  with  divine  retribution,  why 
does  another,  equally  guilty,  escape  unharmed?  In 
supposing  Providence  more  active  in  some  cases  than 
in  others,  putting  in  here,  quiescent  there,  it  virtually 


THE    REGENT   GOD.  77 

supposes  that  God  does  some  things,  and  not  others ; 
that  some  events  are  the  products  of  his  agency,  and 
others  not :  and  the  query  arises.  If  this  is  of  God,  why 
is  not  that  of  God?  If  helpful  here,  why  help-denying 
there?  If  the  world  is  specially  guided  by  divine 
power  in  parts,  why  is  that  power  not  uniformly  active? 
We  are  right  in  speaking  of  special  providences ;  If  by 
that  term  we  designate  striking  providences ;  if  we 
merely  express  our  own  feeling  of  their  import  to  us, 
if  it  is  understood  that  the  specialty  refers  to  our  own 
personal  experience,  and  not  to  the  will  of  God.  When, 
in  any  instance,  we  have  experienced  a  signal  felicity, 
and  feel  ourselves  peculiarly  blest,  the  devout  mind  is 
peculiarly  impressed  with  a  feeling  of  providential  care 
and  love.  To  our  gratitude,  such  blessing  is  a  special 
Providence ;  and  we  do  well  to  emphasize  it  as  such. 
At  the  same  time,  we  ought  to  understand,  that,  so  far 
as  the  divine  government  is  concerned,  every  event  that 
befalls  is  equally  providential.  To  suppose  that  some 
things  are  more  so  than  others,  is  to  charge  God  with  a 
fitful  and  partial  rule,  instead  of  a  uniform  care  and 
government  over  us. 

3.  We  come,  then,  to  the  third  hypothesis,  which 
supposes  Providence  to  consist  in  the  everywhere  pres- 
ent, uniform,  and  direct  action  of  Deity ;  which  sup- 
poses it  to  be  the  sum  and  substance  of  all  these 
agencies,  processes,  and  laws  which  we  call  Nature, 
and  by  which  the  material  universe  moves  and  subsists. 
According  to  this  theory,  there  is  no  power  in  nature, 
or  in  works  of  man's  device,  but  God ;  no  law  but 
divine  volition ;  no  process  but  divine  performance. 
Gravitation  is  one  mode  of  Providence;    magnetism, 


78       RELIGION   WITHIN   THE   BOUNDS    OF   THEISM. 

another ;  electricity,  another.  Providence  is  attraction 
and  repulsion,  cohesion  and  explosion,  flood-tide  and 
ebb-tide,  sunrise  and  sunset,  motion  and  rest.  All  the 
energies  of  nature  are  methods  of  divine  activity,  and 
all  the  phenomena  of  nature  are  phases  of  the  one  eter- 
nal Presence.  According  to  this  view,  whatever  chances 
is  willed,  —  the  mischance  as  well  as  the  looked-for  and 
desired  result,  the  failure  as  well  as  the  fulfilment,  the 
disaster  as  well  as  the  success,  the  foundered  and  unre- 
tuming  vessel  as  well  as  the  safe  arrival,  the  earth- 
quake which  shatters  a  city  as  well  as  the  sunrise  which 
blesses  a  world :  according  to  this  view,  the  unlooked- 
for  escape  is  providential ;  but  equally  providential  the 
loss  and  the  death.  Whatever  chances  is  willed ;  and 
whatever  is  willed  is  ris^ht. 

This  is  the  theory  of  Providence  which  my  own  feel- 
ing inclines  me  to  embrace, — the  only  theory  which 
approves  itself  to  my  judgment,  as  satisfying  equally 
mind  and  heart.  It  satisfies  the  understanding  by  its 
simplicity.  It  avoids  the  paradox  of  an  active  universe 
and  an  inactive  God,  of  intense  activity  at  one  time  and 
quiescence  ever  after,  of  a  sabbath  longer  than  the  term 
of  labor.  It  avoids  the  perplexity  of  two  divinities, 
—  Nature  and  God;  of  self- subsisting  energies  and 
forces ;  of  attributes  without  an  adequate  substance ; 
and,  lastly,  of  a  double  Providence,  —  one  for  every- 
day use,  and  one  for  special  occasions.  It  offers  a 
plain,  distinct,  and  decided  view  of  God's  connection 
with  the  natural  world, — his  agency  in,  and  his  gov- 
ernment over  it.  It  presents  an  idea  of  Providence, 
which,  if  any  object  to  it  on  other  grounds,  must  be 
allowed,  at  least,  to  be  unambiguous,  well-defined,  and 


THE   REGENT  GOD.  79 

perfectly  intelligible,  —  a  Providence  at  once  universal 
and  particular,  uniform  and  unceasing ;  not  coming 
in  and  going  out,  now  here  and  now  there,  as  occasion 
may  require,  but  everywhere  present  and  all  time  ac- 
tive, and  everywhere  and  all  time  one  and  the  same,  — 
a  Providence,  in  fact,  which  is  nature  itself  in  all  its 
aspects  and  ways.  This  theory  satisfies  the  heart  by 
bringing  God  nearer  to  us.  It  shows  him  equally  near 
at  all  times,  and  equally  active  and  equally  benefi- 
cent *  at  all  times,  in  all  things.  It  dissipates  the  hard 
and  comfortless  doctrine  of  a  government  of  general 
laws,  which,  acting  with  fatal  and  remorseless  necessity, 
pursue  their  course  and  fulfil  their  functions,  blindly 
regardless  of  individual  necessities ;  and  which,  though 
productive  of  general  good,  are  often  fraught  with  indi- 
vidual evil.  It  makes  God  the  special  guardian  of  each 
individual,  as  if  that  individual  were  Providence's  sole 
and  peculiar  charge,  and  the  universe  made  and  man- 
aged expressly  for  his  behoof.  It  realizes  to  each  one 
with  gracious  emphasis,  as  a  personal  experience,  the 
beautiful  word  of  the  Psalmist,  "  The  Lord  is  my  shep- 
herd: I  shall  not  want."  It  spiritualizes  the  universe, 
instead  of  mechanizing  it.  It  gives  us  a  full  world, 
instead  of  an  empty  one ;  instead  of  brute  matter,  in- 
sensate forms  and  unconscious  forces,  the  living  Pres- 
ence, the  conscious  Spirit,  the  pervading  God.  The 
universe  is  transfigured  to  him  who  considers  it  in  the 
light  of  this  doctrine.  "  The  dead,  inert  mass  which 
choked  up  space  has  vanished,  and  instead  thereof  flows 


*  This  statement  presupposes  the  moral  character  of  God  as  a  being 
whose  purpose  is  the  good  of  his  creatures. 


80      EELIGION   WITHIN   THE  BOUNDS   OF   THEISM. 

and  waves  and  rushes  the  eternal  stream  of  life  and 
power  and  deed.  All  is  quick,  all  is  soul,  and  gazes 
upon  us  with  bright  spirit-eyes,  and  speaks  in  spirit- 
tones  to  the  heart."*  In  the  eye  of  this  hypothesis,  the 
universe  is  not  a  past  product  of  creative  effort,  Avhich, 
once  produced,  subsists  thenceforth  by  mere  conserva- 
tive power,  but  a  present,  momentary,  continuous  pro- 
duction. The  action  by  which  it  subsists  is  not  a 
preservation  of  some  former  work,  long  since  created 
and  complete,  but  an  ever-new  creation.  The  universe 
is  new-born  continually,  —  birth  everlasting  out  of  the 
bosom  of  self-existent,  original  being.  The  old  types 
remain  ;  but  the  substance  is  new  evermore,  —  an  eter- 
nal generation  from  the  Lord ;  life  welling  forth  in 
measureless  efflux,  fresh  from  the  heart  of  the  living 
God;  a  beginningless,  endless  procession  of  self-com- 
municatino^  Love. 

Informed  with  this  view,  I  can  never  be  alone  in  the 
world ;  for  the  world  itself  is  the  presence  of  God  to 
my  mind  and  heart.  Wherever  the  moment  may  find 
me, — in  the  thronged  highway,  in  the  closet's  retirement, 
in  pathless  deserts,  on  the  rolling  deep, — the  benign 
Presence  confronts  me  face  to  face.  Wherever  I  turn 
my  feet,  wherever  I  turn  my  thought,  I  encounter  the 
besetting  God.  He  is  my  sun,  and  he  my  shade. 
The  morning  comes,  he  floods  me  with  his  light ; 
in  the  evening,  the  heavens  are  all  eyes,  through  which 
he  gazes  as  a  pitying  Father  on  his  child.  If  I  say, 
"  Surely  the  darkness  shall  cover  me,"  I  look  within, 
and  there  I  meet  him  "  in  eternal  day."     Every  process 

*  Fichte,  "  Bestimmung  des  Menscheu." 


THE   REGENT   GOD.  81 

in  nature  is  the  going-forth  of  the  Everlasting  on  his 
messages  of  love,  and  every  event  in  my  experience  is 
a  message  of  love  fulfilled  in  me. 

If  any  one  object  to  this  view,  that,  in  shunning  the 
one  extreme  of  a  far-away,  isolated  God,  —  a  God 
who  dwells  apart  from  his  works  in  solitary  self-suffi- 
cingness,  —  it  runs  to  the  opposite  extreme  of  panthe- 
ism, I  can  only  say,  I  have  no  desire  to  repel  the  plea. 
I  accept  the  charge  of  pantheism,  not  in  the  cheerless, 
impious  sense  of  a  God  all  world,  and  a  world  instead 
of  God,  but  in  the  true  and  primary  sense  of  a  world 
all  God;  i.e.,  a  God  co-present  to  all  his  works,  per- 
vading and  embracing  all ;  a  God,  in  apostolic  phrase, 
"in  whom  and  throus^h  whom  are  all  thins^s."  If  this 
is  pantheism,  it  is  the  pantheism  which  has  ever  been 
the  doctrine  of  the  deepest  piety  :  it  is  the  pantheism 
professed  by  devout  men  in  every  age  of  the  world.  It 
is  the  pantheism  of  Berkeley  when  he  speaks  of  "  finite 
agents  imbosomed  in  an  infinite  Mind."  It  is  the  pan- 
theism of  Newton  when  he  speaks  of  "  a  Being  per- 
vading space,  who,  present  to  all  things,  sees  and 
embraces  all  things  present  within  himself."  It  is  the 
pantheism  of  David  when  he  says,  "Thou  hast  beset  me 
behind  and  before." — "If  I  ascend  into  heaven,  behold  ! 
thou  art  there;  if  I  make  my  bed  in  the  under- world, 
behold !  thou  art  there."  It  is  the  pantheism  of  Paul 
when  he  says,  "In  him  we  live  and  move,  and  have 
our  beini>:." 

To  embrace  this  truth  with  a  faith  proportioned  to  its 
blessed  import,  to  believe  it  truly  and  to  feel  it  wholly, 
is  the  best  result  of  practical  wisdom,  as  it  is  the  dis- 
tinguishing trait  of  pious  souls.     To  feel  around  us  the 

6 


82      RELIGION  WITHIN  THE   BOUNDS   OF  THEISM. 

everlasting  arm  in  all  time  of  peril,  to  know  and  adore 
the  present  God  in  all  time  of  distress,  to  discern  and 
to  follow  the  guiding  "  Shepherd  "  in  every  strait,  is  the 
high  privilege  of  manly  faith.  Such  faith  is  strength 
in  weakness,  refreshment  in  sorrow,  hope  in  death. 
So  instructed  and  so  panoplied,  we  shall  "  not  fear  the 
power  of  any  adversary,"  nor  sink  despairing  under  any 
fate.  We  shall  bide  undaunted  our  season  of  peril, 
and  fearless  tread  the  dark  valley.  When  the  blows  of 
adversity  fall  thick  and  fast  on  our  devoted  heads,  we 
shall  bear,  with  strength  proportioned  to  our  day,  the 
spoiling  of  our  goods,  the  loss  of  our  beloved,  the  dis- 
appointment of  our  hopes  ;  —  most  comforted  then  when 
most  afflicted,  most  trusting  then  when  most  severely 
tried,  most  hopeful  when  most  stricken,  most  calmly 
blest  when  at  length  we  have  learned  effectually  the 
hard  but  fruitful  lesson  of  unconditional,  undoubting 
submission  to  the  Power  which  passes  alike  compre- 
hension and  control. 

"  Submit,  in  this  or  any  other  sphere. 
Secure  to  be  as  blest  as  thou  canst  bear ; 
Safe  in  the  hand  of  one  disposing  Power, 
Or  in  the  natal  or  the  mortal  hour. 
All  nature  is  but  art  unknown  to  thee  ; 
All  chance,  direction  which  thou  canst  not  see ; 
All  discord,  harmony  not  understood ; 
All  partial  evil,  universal  good." 


IV. 

THE  ANSWERING  GOD. 


/ 


IV. 

THE  ANSWERING  GOD. 

In  our  prayers  and  addresses  to  the  unseen  Power, 
faith  takes  it  for  granted  that  the  suppliant  is  heard ; 
that  the  prayer  is  not  a  cry  into  empty  space,  a  breath- 
ing wasted  on  the  desert  air ;  that  there  are  really  two 
parties  in  all  such  exercises, — the  soul  that  prays,  and 
the  God  who  hears.  Faith  supposes  this,  or  prayer 
would  be  the  most  unmeaning  mockery,  and,  with  hon- 
est, simple  souls,  would  soon  cease  altogether. 

And  yet,  if  we  consider  it,  what  a  daring  assump- 
tion, to  suppose  that  the  Infinite  takes  note  of  individual 
supplications  !  When  we  think  what  countless  myriads 
of  suppliants  are  proffering  their  petitions,  it  may  be, 
at  one  and  the  same  moment,  and,  it  may  be,  for  con- 
tradictory favors ;  in  such  wise  that  to  grant  the  re- 
quests of  one  party  would  be  to  deny  the  requests  of 
the  other ;  as  where,  in  the  conflict  of  armies,  individu- 
als on  both  sides  pray  for  success  in  battle  ;  or  where 
relisrionists  of  different  faiths  entreat  the  divine  blessins:, 
each  on  their  separate  cause,  and  desire  the  prevalence 
of  their  respective  churches;  —  when  we  think  of  this, 
it  baffles  the  understanding  to  conceive  that  the  infinite 

God  should  give  special  heed  to  the  prayers  of  individ- 

[85] 


8Q      RELIGION  WITHIN   THE   BOUNDS   OF   THEISM. 

ual  finite  beings.  On  the  other  hand,  the  belief  of  this 
is  so  essential  to  religion,  that  the  two  must  stand  or 
fall  together.  Religion,  in  any  sense  characteristically 
distinct  from  philosophy,  poetry,  or  art,  is  impossible 
without  worship  ;  and  worship  is  hardly  possible  without 
prayer ;  and  prayer  would  soon  cease  without  the  belief 
in  a  Being  who  hears  and  heeds  supplication,  if  he  does 
not  always  grant  the  request. 

And  happily,  the  power  of  the  understanding  to  con- 
ceive is  not  the  measure  of  spiritual  truth.  The  under- 
standing knows  nothing  of  the  existence  of  God  by  any 
insight  or  function  of  its  own ;  and,  if  the  understand- 
ing were  the  only  guide  and  the  only  avenue  of  truth  to 
man,  no  prayer  would  ever  go  up  from  mortal  lips,  and 
no  Godward  thouolit  or  desire  would  ever  arise  in  mor- 
tal  breasts.  The  understanding  views  every  thing  in 
the  light  of  its  own  laws,  which  weigh  and  measure  the 
material  world,  and  reduce  all  the  processes  of  nature 
and  life  to  arithmetical  calculation.  Happily  there  is 
something  else  in  the  world  beside  measure  and  weight, 
and  the  multiplication-table,  and  cold,  mechanical  laws. 
What  a  world  it  would  be  in  which  every  thing  went  by 
dead-weight ;  where  all  could  be  calculated,  —  so  much 
always  in  a  given  time ;  so  much,  and  no  more,  with 
given  means  !  —  a  world  in  which  there  should  be  no 
surprises,  no  incalculable  factor  ever  interposed  among 
the  measurable  forces  that  work  the  machine  and  work 
out  the  results  of  every-day  life,  no  inspiration  in  man, 
no  reserved  power  in  nature,  no  residue  of  spirit  or 
supplemental  grace  in  God.  Such  is  the  world  in 
which  the  understanding  lives  and  moves ;  a  piece  of 
mechanism  of  limited  capacity,  in  which  there  is  noth- 


THE    ANS WEEING   GOD.  87 

ing  spontaneous,  in  which  every  act  is  predetermined, 
and  piety  itself  the  result  of  inevitable  laws.  In  such 
a  world  there  is  evidently  no  place  and  no  legitimate 
ground  for  prayer.  The  world  is  a  machine  set  agoing 
with  the  prime  creation,  and  all  the  processes  of  nature 
and  human  history  are  mechanical  functions  :  there  is 
nothing  for  it  but  to  take  what  the  mill  of  all-work  may 
grind  for  us,  and  ask  no  questions.  Instead  of  a  pres- 
ent God  with  whom  our  spirits  may  commune,  and 
whose  spirit  responds  to  our  seeking,  we  must  rough  it 
as  we  can  with  driving-wheel  and  fly-wheel,  — memo- 
rials of  a  God  who  lived  long  ago,  —  and  trust  that  the 
power  may  not  fail,  nor  the  gearing  foul,  in  our  short 
day. 

The  world  which  faith  inhabits  is  otherwise  consti- 
tuted. In  that  world,  God  is  the  present  "VYill  by 
whose  momentary  action  it  exists  and  proceeds,  —  a 
Will  in  immediate  contact  with  our  wills ;  and  prayer, 
in  that  world,  is  a  real  power ;  and  human  life,  instead 
of  the  blind  play  of  shaft  and  piston,  is  growth  from  a 
seed,  susceptible  of  momentary  modification  through 
the  action  of  that  power  of  prayer  on  that  present, 
living  Will. 

For  those  who  live  always  and  altogether  in  that 
world,  there  "needs  no  other  proof  than  their  o^vn  faith 
that  prayer  is  heard  by  the  Being  addressed ;  that  their 
souls  are  in  actual  communication  with  God,  and  God 
with  them,  through  this  medium.  But  faith  is  not 
equally  active  at  all  times.  Doubts  of  the  objective 
efficacy  of  prayer  will  sometimes  obtrude  themselves  on 
otherwise  believing  souls.  Do  we  breathe  our  petitions 
into  empty  space  ?  or  do  they  light  upon  some  listening 


88       RELIGION   WITHIN   THE   BOUNDS   OF   THEISM. 

Presence?  Do  they  reach  their  destination  in  some 
sympathizing,  infinite  Spirit, — some  divine  Person, 
who,  shrouded  in  unfathomable  but  not  inaccessible 
mystery,  receives  and  considers  the  supplication  ad- 
dressed to  him?  It  is  a  question  between  theism  and 
atheism. 

There  are  moments  in  life  when  some  pledge  is  de- 
sired of  divine  communication,  —  some  demonstration 
of  a  real,  responsive  relation  between  the  soul  and  the 
Supreme.  A  man  is  hesitating,  let  us  suppose,  be- 
tween two  sides  of  a  o-iven  alternative  :  he  has  to  choose 
between  two  courses  of  conduct,  between  doing  or  not 
doing  a  certain  thing,  between  taking  or  not  taking  a 
certain  position.  His  decision  involves  consequences 
of  vast  moment  to  himself  and  others.  Reasons  are 
weighty  on  both  sides,  for  and  against.  He  is  in  a 
strait  betwixt  two.  Unable  or  unwilling  to  decide  of 
his  own  wisdom,  he  craves  direction  from  the  All-wise. 
Let  God  decide :  let  the  burden  of  responsibility  rest 
with  him  !  His  will  be  done  !  But  what  is  his  will 
concerning  the  matter  in  debate?  How  shall  the  sup- 
pliant, seeldng  divine  guidance,  be  apprised  of  it? 

Individuals,  in  such  cases,  resort  to  different  meas- 
ures, or  satisfy  themselves  with  different  tests,  accord- 
ing as  different  ages  and  faiths,  or  diflferences  of 
individual  constitution,  may  incline. 

The  Hebrew  Gideon,  fifth  in  that  line  of  military 
dictators  known  in  our  Bible  by  the  name  of  "Judges," 
felt  himself  divinely  called  to  free  his  people  from  the 
rava<Tes  of  the  Midianites  who  invaded  their  borders 
and  laid  waste  the  land.  Before  entering  on  this  diflS- 
cult  and  dangerous  enterprise,  he  required  to  be  assured 


THE    ANSWEEING  GOD.  89 

of  the  truth  of  his  calling  by  some  visible  token  which 
should  justify  and  supplement  the  inspiration  of  faith, 
and  be  a  God-given  pledge  of  success.  "If  now  I 
have  found  grace  in  thy  sight,  show  me  a  sign  that  thou 
talkest  with  me.".  .  .  "If  thou  wilt  save  Israel  by  my 
hand,  as  thou  hast  said,  behold !  I  will  put  a  fleece  of 
wool  in  the  floor ;  and  if  the  dew  be  on  the  fleece  only, 
and  it  be  dry  upon  all  the  earth  besides,  then  shall  I 
know  that  thou  wilt  save  Israel  by  my  hand  as  thou 
hast  said."  According  to  the  story,  the  sign  was  vouch- 
safed :  the  fleece,  in  the  morning,  was  wet  with  dew, 
and  the  earth  around  was  dry.  The  chief  still  wavered. 
Natural  causes  might  explain  the  wonder.  Another 
trial  was  required.  Let  the  miracle  now  be  reversed. 
"  Let  it  now  be  dry  only  upon  the  fleece,  and  upon  all 
the  ground  let  there  be  dew.  And  God  did  so  that 
night ;  for  it  was  dry  upon  the  fleece  only,  and  there , 
was  dew  on  all  the  ground." 

I  enter  into  no  explanation  of  this  story.  My  con- 
cern is  not  with  Gideon's  fleece,  but  with  the  impres- 
sion on  the  mind  of  the  suppliant,  —  with  the  feeling 
which  led  him  to  desire  this  external  authentication  of 
his  mission.  The  same  feeling  has  impelled  men  in 
every  age  to  look  for  demonstrations  of  the  will  of 
Heaven  in  some  visible  or  audible  sis^n.  The  Greeks 
had  recourse  to  oracles,  which  consisted  in  the  utter- 
ances of  a  kind  of  delirium,  supposed  to  be  a  medium 
of  divine  communications.  The  Hebrews  consulted  the 
sparkle  of  jewels,  or  were  counselled  by  voices  in 
the  air.  The  Romans  drew  auguries  from  the  entraiks 
of  victims  and  the  flight  of  bu'ds.  Decision  by  lot  is  a 
common  resort  in  cases  of  doubtful  choice.     When, 


90      RELIGION   WITHIN   THE   BOUNDS   OF  THEISM. 

after  the  death  of  Judas  Iscariot,  the  disciples  of  Jesus 
proceeded  to  fill  his  vacant  office,  of  two  individuals  who 
seemed  to  be  equally  fitted  for  the  function,  they  prayed 
the  Lord  to  designate  by  lot  the  one  whom  he  had 
chosen.  And,  when  the  lot  fell  upon  Matthias,  they 
doubted  not  that  the  Lord  had  directed  the  event  in 
accordance  with  their  prayer. 

Chance  readings  in  sacred  or  cherished  books  have 
also  been  accepted  as  signs  from  heaven.  St.  Augus- 
tine, at  a  critical  moment  of  his  life,  resolved  that  the 
passage  on  which  his  eye  should  first  light,  on  opening 
a  copy  of  Paul's  Epistles,  should  determine  his  future 
course.  He  opened  and  read,  "  Make  no  provision  for 
the  flesh  to  fulfil  the  lusts  thereof,"  and  forthwith  em- 
braced a  life  of  devotion.  How  many  good  Christians, 
the  world  over,  have  sought  and  received  counsel,  sug- 
gestion, consolation,  inspiration,  from  accidental  words 
of  Scripture  !  The  soldier  on  the  eve  of  battle,  open- 
ing his  pocket  Bible  in  the  tent,  chances  on  the  passage, 
"A  thousand  shall  fall  at  thy  side,  and  ten  thousand  at 
thy  right  hand  ;  but  it  shall  not  come  nigh  thee."  And 
he  thinks,  on  the  field  the  next  day,  in  the  thickest  of 
the  fight,  that  he  bears  a  charmed  life.  The  preacher 
on  shipboard,  in  imminent  peril  as  he  fancies,  opens  at 
random,  and  reads,  "Thou  shalt  not  die,  but  live  and 
declare  my  statutes."  He  feels  that  God  has  spoken  to 
him  in  those  words,  and  the  tempest  loses  its  terrors. 
There  are  few  devout  persons  who  have  not  at  some 
moment  of  their  lives  experienced  what  seemed  to  be  an 
immediate  communication  of  God  to  their  souls, — who 
have  not  felt  that  God  spoke  to  them  individually  by 
some  written  word  or  sign  addressed  to  the  eye  or  ear, 


THE   ANSWERING   GOD.  91 

or,  it  may  be,  some  dream  which  they  so  interpreted, 
or  some  internal  experience  which  they  could  not,  or 
would  not,  explain  in  any  other  sense  than  that  of  the 
immediate  action  of  God  on  their  mind.  The  prepared 
soul  finds  a  divine  communication  in  every  word  or 
event  that  touches  it  eiFectually  and  savingly  in  its  hour 
of  need.  Wherever  it  finds  God  especially  near,  it 
feels  itself  found  and  addressed  by  him. 

But  reason  still  questions.  Can  there  be  a  direct 
communication  with  God,  and  of  God  with  us,  as  man 
converses  with  man  ?  Can'  there  be  any  token  or  dem- 
onstration to  the  senses  or  the  understanding  of  such 
communication?  Can  there  be,  in  the  nature  of  things, 
any  credible  sign  that  God  talks  with  us,  or  hears  and 
heeds  our  prayer?  —  that  he  is  really  a  party,  an  ac- 
tive, conscious  party,  in  this  supposed  communication 
with  Deity  in  prayer  ?  —  that  the  conscious  action  is  not 
all  on  one  side,  —  on  the  side  of  the  soul?  Can  there 
be  any  proof  of  this  that  will  stand  the  test  of  criti- 
cism? 

Here  are  two  distinct  questions.  The  possibility  of  a 
real  communication  between'  the  human  and  divine  is 
one  question.  The  possibility  of  any  proof  to  the  un- 
derstanding, of  such  communication,  is  another.  The 
first  is  substantially,  as  I  have  said,  a  question  between 
theism  and  atheism ;  between  God  and  no  God,  in  the 
proper  sense  of  the  term  ;  between  a  personal  God  and 
any  other  conception  to  which  we  may  choose  to  apply 
that  sacred  name.  Mutual  communications  between  the 
human  soul  and  a  personal  God  follow  necessarily,  if 
truly  and  devoutly  sought  on  the  human  side,  from  the 
nature  of  that  divine  Person.     And,  if  we  dismiss  from 


92       RELIGION  WITHIN   THE   BOUNDS   OF  THEISM. 

our  idea  of  God  the  attribute  of  personality,  what  have 
we  left  but  the  absolute  rule  of  almighty  Power,  —  the 
origin  and  law  of  universal  being  ?  A  wise  and  benefi- 
cent rule,  if  you  please,  —  a  rule  of  which  the  purpose 
and  issue  is  the  general  good,  and  submission  to  which 
is  duty  and  safety,  but  not  a  God  who  receives  sup- 
plication, or  to  whom  supplication  would  ever  be  ad- 
dressed by  rational  souls.  Prayer,  in  that  case,  can 
mean  nothing  more  than  devout  contemplation  of  the 
universal  order,  and  devout  acquiescence  therein ;  grate- 
ful recognition  of  the  good  received,  patient  endurance 
of  necessary  evil.  This,  too,  is  a  kind  of  religion,  but 
not  a  religion  which  meets  the  requirements  of  faith,  or 
satisfies  devout  aspiration.  It  is  not  enough  for  me  to 
know  that  the  world  is  not  subject  to  irrational,  lawless 
accident,  but  governed,  and  well  governed,  and  ordered 
for  good.  I  desire  to  enter  into  personal,  conscious, 
mutual  relations  with  the  Power  that  rules  ;  to  feel  that 
I,  individually,  am  known  and  loved  by  that  ruling 
Power ;  can  reach  him  with  my  petitions,  so  that  he 
shall  heed  them ;  that  I  can  commune  with  a  Spirit 
above  the  level  of  the  human,  and  above  the  order  of 
nature ;  and  that  Spirit  with  me.  The  idea  of  a  person 
in  the  Godhead  answers  to  this  demand  :  it  reaches  my 
need  with  infinite  succors.  The  idea  of  a  personal  God 
carries  with  it  the  possibility  —  nay,  certainty  —  of  di- 
vine communication  to  all  who  sincerely  desire,  and 
earnestly  and  perseveringly  seek  it. 

But  when  we  inquire  further,  if  any  sign  is  possible 
of  the  fact  and  reality  of  such  communication,  which 
shall  satisfy  the  understanding,  —  any  proof  impregna- 
ble to  criticism, — reason  answers  that  such  signs  are 


THE  ANSWERING  GOD.  93 

neither  possible  nor  desirable.      The  region  in  which 
these  communications  take  place  is  a  region  of  faith, 
and  only  through  faith  and  to  faith  are  such  communi- 
cations possible.     When  God  speaks  to  the  understand- 
ing,  it  is  not  of  himself,  or  things  spiritual,  that  he 
speaks,  but  of  such  things  only  as  the  understanding, 
whose   function  is   to  methodize  sensible  impressions, 
referring  them  to  physical  or  physiological  laws,  can 
receive.     Only  those  truths  which  admit  of  mathemati- 
cal demonstration,  or  those  which  follow  with  ioaical 
necessity  from  incontrovertible  premises,  are  impregnable 
to  criticism.     Spiritual  truths,  however  assured  to  those 
who  receive  them,  though  certain  as  mathematical  dem- 
onstration within  their  proper  domain,  cannot  be  proved 
to  the  understanding,  because  the  domain  itself  to  which 
they  relate  is  outside  of  the  sphere  of  the  understanding, 
or  more  properly  perhaps  inside  of  it ;  in  either  view, 
beyond  the  reach  of  that  faculty,  which  deals  only  with 
sensible  existences  and  their  relations.     It  is  impossible 
to  imagine  any  outAvard  sign  or  visible  token  of  divine 
communications  which  the  understandins:  will  not  dis- 
pute ;  for  which  it  will  not  find  another  interpretation. 
The  Hebrew  warrior  doubted  the  very  token  he  himself 
had  desired :  he  demanded  another,  and  would,  with  a 
little  more  criticism,  have  doubted  that  as  well.     Visi- 
ble tokens  of  divine  communication  there  may  be ;  but 
faith  will  always  be  required  to  receive  them  as  such. 
In  the  view  of  faith,  the  answer  of  prayer  in  the  thing 
desired  will  seem  a  sufficient  demonstration  of  the  fact 
tliat  the  prayer  is  heard,  and  that  the  favor  received  is 
the  natural  elFect  and  fruit  of  prayer.     Yet  it  is  impos- 
sible to  prove  to  the  understanding   any  real  causal 


94      RELIGION  WITHIN  THE   BOUNDS   OF   THEISM. 

relation  between  the  two.  A  sceptic,  disinclined  by 
mental  habit  to  admit  the  principle  involved,  will  dis- 
pose of  such  cases  with  the  vague  and  accommodating 
phrase  "  coincidence  ;  "  which,  duly  considered,  is  only 
a  different  statement  of  the  fact  from  another  point  of 
view.  Coincidence  is  the  external  aspect  of  that  for 
which  some  interior  reason  must  be  supposed.  For 
though  things  which  coincide  are  not  always  related  as 
cause  and  eifect,  yet  where,  together  with  coincidence 
in  time,  there  is  also  a  mutual  fitness  and  a  moral  link 
between  the  two,  a  reaching-forth  of  one  toward  the 
other,  a  natural  correspondence  between  the  antecedent 
and  the  consequent,  it  is  fair  to  presume  a  divine  adap- 
tation. Sober  thought,  independently  of  faith,  will  not 
rest  satisfied  with  an  empty  name ;  but,  pursuing  the 
inquiry,  will  see  that  coincidences  are  not  blind  acci- 
dent, but  marks  and  moments  of  a  pre-established  har- 
mony which  arranges  these  parallelisms  between  the 
natural  and  the  moral  world,  and  adjusts  creation  to 
the  faithful  soul. 

Further  than  this,  it  is  not  to  be  expected,  and  not 
to  be  desired,  that  the  commerce  with  God  assured 
to  faith  should  be  vouched  to  the  senses  by  visible 
signs.  One  sees  at  once  what  a  door  would  be  opened 
to  wild  superstition  and  irreverent  use,  if  such  demon- 
strations were  vouchsafed,  or  might  be  expected  when- 
ever and  by  whomsoever  desired ;  how  every  event 
would  be  subsidized  by  vain  curiosity  impertinently 
questioning  the  deep  things  of  God ;  how  all  nature 
would  be  perverted  to  oracles  of  private  interpretation 
by  importunate  souls  ;  and  how  all  barriers  between 
the  holy  and  profane  would  be  broken  down.      The 


THE   ANSWERING   GOD.  95 

visionary  Rousseau  relates,  that,  in  early  youth,  he 
sought,  by  throwing  stones  at  a  mark,  to  ascertain 
whether  he  was  destined  for  heaven  or  hell.  A  hit  or 
a  miss  ehould  be  a  sign  from  God  of  life  eternal,  or  ever- 
lasting death.  No  wonder  he  took  care,  as  he  frankly 
confesses,  to  stand  very  near,  and  to  have  the  mark 
conveniently  broad.  Such  misapplications  might  be 
expected  of  any  supposed  license  to  question  God  by 
visible  signs.  The  soul  has  a  right  to  seek  assurance 
of  the  presence  and  participation  of  God  in  its  confer- 
ence with  him,  but  not  to  prescribe  the  desired  pledge, 
or  to  dictate  the  nature  of  the  proof.  It  stands  in  the 
nature  of  the  thing,  that  the  proof  njust  be  internal, 
and  the  token  evident  only  to  faith.  Such  a  token  is  a 
sudden  inspiration  breathed  into  the  mind,  or  a  sudden 
peace  descending  on  the  heart,  in  answer  to  the  soul's 
aspiration  and  appeal ;  the  new  strengthening  of  the 
will ;  the  new  -  born  courage  ;  the  new  -  born  hope. 
These  are  the  fire  from  heaven  that  kindles  the  flame  on 
the  altar,  assuring  an  acceptable  offering.  What  better 
sign  can  there  be  ?  What  surer  pledge  of  a  hearing, 
heeding,  answering  God? 

If  there  be  the  personal  God  whom  faith  conceives, 
there  must  be  the  personal  relations  and  communica- 
tions with  him  which  faith  supposes  and  religion  craves. 
Our  spirits  must  be  in  contact  w^ith  their  kind.  Some- 
where and  somehow  there  must  be  an  answer  to  every 
true  prayer.  For  surely  the  economies  of  the  moral 
world  are  not  less  exact  than  those  of  the  natural. 
In  the  realm  of  matter,  there  is  no  waste.  Not  a  grain 
of  dust,  not  a  drop  of  water,  not  a  particle  of  vapor, 
can  ever  be  lost  to  the  sphere  of  which  it  is  a  compo- 


93      RELIGION  WITHIN  THE   BOUNDS   OF   THEISM. 

nent  part.  The  dew  which  bathes  the  summer  rose, 
and  glorifies  the  meadow  with  its  morning  sheen,  had  its 
origin  in  what  might  seem  to  be  the  escapes  and  wastes 
of  the  planet.  And,  when  rose  and  meadow  have  ex- 
haled their  dews  at  the  touch  of  the  sun,  the  viewless, 
imponderable  vapor  is  not  dissipated  beyond  recall ;  it 
is  not  all  spent  on  the  thankless  air ;  it  is  gathered  and 
garnered  in  the  chambers  of  the  sky,  and  returns  again 
in  due  season,  according  to  its  circuit,  in  orient  dews 
or  refreshing  showers.  And  shall  not  the  finer  exhala- 
tions of  the  soul,  —  the  prayers  which  are  breathed 
from  the  deeps  of  the  breast,  the  secret  vows,  the  God- 
ward  thought,  the  devout  aspiration, — shall  not  these 
also  return  again  according  to  their  circuit,  and  bring 
their  blessing? 


V. 

THE  EXOEABLE  GOD. 


V. 

THE  EXORABLE   GOD. 

Faith  and  unbelief  alternate  in  human  history,  and 
shape  the  world  according  to  their  kind.  An  age  of 
devotion  followed  by  a  period  of  secularism,  a  period 
of  secularism  followed  by  an  age  of  devotion,  inverts 
the  proportions  of  mortal  life.  At  one  time,  this  earth 
is  but  the  forecourt  of  an  unseen,  heavenly  world  ;  the 
lodge  before  the  garden  gates  of  a  spiritual  paradise ;  a 
mere  suburb  of  the  city  of  God  :  at  another,  heaven  and 
the  life  to  come  are  only  a  perspective  finish,  —  a  kind 
of  artistic  background  to  the  earthly  world.  But,  in 
every  age,  prayer  and  religion  are  one  and  inseparable  : 
as  much  as  there  is  of  the  one,  so  much  of  the  other. 

For  this  is  the  one  universal  thing  in  religion, 
common  alike  to  the  lowest  forms  of  nature-worship 
and  the  most  sublime  mysticism,  more  universal  than 
even  the  belief  in  God.  Religions  that  have  no  God, 
as  we  understand  that  term,  no  Supreme  Euler  of  the 
universe,  still  practise  prayer  to  such  forces  and  demons 
as  they  know.  However  the  exercise  may  vary,  and 
whether  performed  by  mechanism  or  meditation,  whether 
it  consist  in  the  revolutions  of  a  wheel,  in  manipulating 
beads,  or  in  the  rapt  contemplation  of  the  Quietist, 
prayer  is  stilJ  the  essence  of  religion.     The  negroes  of 

[99] 


100       RELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

Guinea,  according  to  Father  Loyer,  along  with  their 
fetichism,  believe  in  an  unseen  Power,  and  pray  to  it  in 
this  fashion,  when,  in  the  morning,  they  have  washed 
in  the  running  stream :  "  My  God  !  give  me  this  day 
rice  and  yams ;  give  me  gold  and  slaves  and  riches ; 
and  grant  that  I  may  be  active  and  swift."  Compare 
the  frank  and  childish  egoism  of  such  petitions  with  the 
prayer  of  Socrates :  "  Grant  that  I  may  be  inwardly 
pure,  and  that  my  lot  may  be  such  as  shall  best  agree 
with  a  right  disposition  of  the  mind  ! "  Compare  it 
with  the  prayer  of  St.  Augustine  :  "  God  grant  that 
my  heart  may  desire  thee ;  that,  desiring,  it  may  seek 
thee ;  that,  seeking,  it  may  find ;  that,  finding,  it  may 
love  ;  that,  loving,  it  may  be  redeemed  from  all  evil !  " 
Compare  it  with  the  prayer  of  Jesus  :  "  That  they  all 
may  be  one,  as  I,  Father,  am  in  thee,  and  thou  in  me ; 
that  they  may  be  one  in  us ! "  Consider  these  four 
degrees  of  supplication,  —  the  prayer  for  sensual  grati- 
fication, the  prayer  for  moral  excellence,  the  prayer  for 
God  himself  as  the  supreme  Good,  and,  finally,  the 
prayer  that  all  mankind  may  be  partakers  of  that  good, 
—  and  learn  from  these  examples  the  carry  and  the 
scope  of  this  act  of  faith. 

Prayer  for  specific  objects,  proffered  with  the  hope 
of  influencing  the  divine  Will,  is  the  topic  I  am  now  to 
discuss.  In  the  chapter  preceding  this,  I  considered 
the  question,  and  maintained  the  fact  (in  the  world  of 
faith),  of  a  real  communication  with  God.  The  efficacy 
of  prayer  —  its  power  to  procure  the  desired  blessing  — 
is  a  quite  distinct  point.  Is  God  an  exorable  being? 
On  this  question,  religion  and  the  current  philosophy 


THE   EXORABLE    GOD.  101 

conflict.  Religion  assumes  the  efficacy  of  prayer  as  a 
fundamental  postulate.  The  current  philosophy  pleads 
the  alleged  immutability  of  God,  and  the  necessary 
order  of  events.  God  is  supposed  to  have  pre-arranged 
every  thing,  and  every  thing  therefore  to  be  unalter- 
ably fixed.  Every  thing  that  can  happen  to  me  is 
fore-ordained :  so,  and  no  otherwise,  must  it  be  with 
me.  All  the  solicitation  I  can  urge  cannot  move  the 
Eternal  from  his  fixed  purpose,  or  change  the  complex- 
ion of  my  lot.  Whatever  it  has  seemed  good  to  the 
All- wise  that  I  should  have  or  be,  will  come  to  pass 
without  my  asking,  and  in  spite  of  my  entreaty. 
And  whatsoever  it  has  not  seemed  good  to  the  All-wise 
that  I  should  have  or  be,  that  no  asking  will  procure 
for  me.     Why,  then,  should  I  pray? 

The  argument  rests  on  a  bare   assumption.      That 
God   has    predetermined   every  thing  or  any  thing  is 
pure  hypothesis,  —  a  theory  of  God  unsubstantiated  by 
any  trustworthy  authority,  incapable  of  scientific  dem- 
onstration.    Unquestionably,  the  order  of  events  is  a 
necessary  order.     Every  thing  that  takes  place  is  the 
necessary  consequence  of  something  which  went  before 
it.     But,  when  we  say  "predetermined,"  we  transfer  to 
God  the  modes  and  conditions  of  the  finite  mind.     We 
imagine  him  subject,   like  ourselves,   to  the  laws  and 
order  of  time  and  place,  with  whom  there  is  neither 
here  nor  there,  nor  before  nor  after.     The  order  of 
events  is  necessary  ;  inasmuch  as  it  is  not  accidental, 
but  governed  by  powers,  and  determined  by  causes, 
which  act  according  to  immutable  laws.     But  then  my 
will  is  one  of  those  powers ;  and  prayer,  being  one  of 
the  modes  in  which  my  will  acts,  may  be  one  of  the 


102      RELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

causes  which  determine  the  order  of  events.  God  is  in 
me  as  well  as  out  of  me.  He  acts  not  only  on  me  and 
for  me,  but  through  me.  Every  movement  of  my  soul 
is  one  of  his  instrumentalities,  and  prayer  among  the 
rest.  Therefore  it  is  not  unreasonable  to  suppose,  that 
my  destiny  and  others'  destinies  may  be  affected  by  my 
prayer. 

Another  answer  to  this  objection,  drawn  from  the 
inflexibility  of  the  divine  nature  and  the  necessary  order 
of  events,  is,  that  no  man  believes  it.  No  man  believes 
it  to  that  extent,  that  he  is  willing  to  act  upon  it  as  a 
rule  of  life,  which  would  be  equivalent  to  not  acting  at 
all.  The  objection  is  just  as  valid  against  every  other 
act  and  effort,  as  against  prayer.  If  all  things  are 
unalterably  fixed  and  must  come  to  pass,  so  and  not 
otherwise, — whatever  we  do  or  omit  to  do, — then  why 
act  at  all  with  a  view  to  any  end  to  be  accomplished  by 
our  action  ?  But  no  man  is  a  fatalist  to  that  extent. 
No  man  who  professes  to  believe  that  all  things  are  fore- 
ordained abstains  from  voluntary  action  on  that  account. 
You  believe  that  God  has  predetermined  whether  A  or 
B  shall  carry  the  day  in  a  popular  election  :  why  should 
you  take  any  steps  to  promote  or  prevent  that  which  is 
fixed  by  inevitable  decree  ?  But  you  do  not  hesitate  to 
deposit  your  vote,  and  to  use  such  means  as  you  can, 
to  secure  the  man  of  your  choice.  God  has  predeter- 
mined whether  or  no  thieves  shall  break  into  your 
dwelling ;  but  you  do  not  hesitate  to  adopt  the  usual 
precautions.  God  has  predetermined  whether  or  no 
your  farm  shall  produce ;  but  you  do  not  hesitate  to 
fertilize  the  soil,  and  to  put  it  in  the  best  condition  for 
the  largest  yield.      The  reason  is,   you  see  in  these 


THE  EXOEABLE   GOD.  103 

cases,  whatever  your  theory  of  fixed  decrees,  a  relation 
of  means  to  ends  which  invites  to  action.  No  man  is 
so  persuaded  of  the  fore-ordination  of  events  as  not  to 
exercise  some  voluntary  agency  of  his  own  in  bringing 
about  such  as  are  desirable,  and  staving  off  that  which 
he  fears.  Whatever  their  theory,  men  practically  be- 
lieve that  events  are  contingent,  and  hang  in  some 
measure  on  their  volition,  —  on  their  voluntary  action. 
In  prayer  you  do  not  see  this  relation  of  means  and 
ends,  and  therefore  you  assume  that  it  does  not  exist ; 
that  prayer  is  unavailing  for  any  practical  end  beyond 
the  mind  of  the  suppliant.  "  Our  ignorance  of  Deity," 
says  Plutarch,  "manifests  itself  in  two  opposite  tenden- 
cies :  one  is  inordinate  superstition ;  the  other,  athe- 
ism." There  are  various  kinds  of  atheism.  Disbelief 
in  prayer  is  one  kind. 

But  is  the  Deity  an  exorable  being?  Is  the  all-wise 
Disposer  of  events  to  be  moved  by  entreaty,  determined 
by  the  prayer  of  finite  minds  ?  This  is  not  a  question 
on  which  any  one  has  a  right  to  dogmatize.  I  only 
know  that  the  Deity  so  reveals  himself  in  me ;  and  I 
also  know  —  who  does  not  know  ?  —  that  prayer,  in 
imminent  necessity,  is  a  universal  instinct  of  the  human 
heart,  —  an  instinct  which  characterizes  man  as  man, 
and  is  common  to  all  faiths  and  nations.  There  are 
few,  perhaps  none,  who  would  not  pray  in  some  cases, 
however  indisposed  to  prayer  in  general,  by  theory  or 
habit,  —  who  would  not  breathe  forth  a  silent  petition 
in  moments  of  extreme  peril.  "  When  the  wish  within 
you,"  says  "Asmus,"  "concerns  you  nearly,  and  is  very 
ardent,  it  will  not  question  long ;  it  will  overpower  you 
like  a  strong  man  armed ;  it  will  hurry  on  a  few  rags 


\04      RELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

of  words,  and  knock  at  the  door  of  heaven." — "I  have 
great  respect  for  the  necessary  order  and  connection  of 
events  ;  but  I  cannot  help  thinking  of  Samson,  who 
left  the  connection  of  tlie  gate-leaves  unchanged,  but 
carried  the  whole  gate  off  bodily  on  his  shoulders." 
Philosophy  or  no  philosophy,  such  is  man ;  such  is 
the  instinctive  faith  of  the  human  soul !  This  instinct 
supposes  a  meaning  and  efficacy  in  prayer,  without 
which  it  would  seem  to  have  been  implanted  in  vain. 
To  all  theory  and  reasoning  and  speculation  on  the 
subject,  I  oppose  this  inborn,  ineradicable  instinct  of 
the  soul,  which,  if  it  does  not  demonstrate  the  efficacy 
of  prayer,  affords  at  least  a  rational  presumption  in  its 
favor,  and,  on  the  whole,  is  less  likely  to  deceive  us 
than  our  speculations.  It  may  be  objected,  that  these 
instinctive  prayers  for  aid  in  great  emergencies  are  not 
always  answered  :  they  do  not  always  avert  the  im- 
pending evil.  The  calamity  befalls,  our  prayers  to  the 
contrary  notwithstanding.  It  may  be  so.  The  prayer 
is  not  always  answered  ;  but  who  shall  say  that  it  is 
never  answered?  Who  shall  say,  that,  when  unan- 
swered in  the  thing  desired,  it  is  not  answered  in  some 
other  and  better  way  ? 

As  a  question  of  philosophy,  I  much  suspect  that 
philosophy  as  shallow  and  insufficient  which  runs  coun- 
ter to  the  native  instincts  of  the  soul.  Philosophy  ob- 
jects, that  prayer  is  founded  in  low,  anthropomorphic 
views  of  God.  What  if  it  should  appear  that  the 
current  philosophy  itself  is  guilty,  and  that,  in  a  far 
greater  degree,  of  precisely  the  same  fault? — that  the 
view  of  God  which  that  philosophy  assumes  is  the  least 
adequate,  the  most  crude  and  unphilosophical,  of  the 


THE   EXORABLE   GOD.  105 

two  ?  For  is  it  not  a  mechanical  view  of  divine  methods 
and  operations  ?  It  regards  God  as  a  mechanician  ;  the 
world  as  a  machine,  which,  once  set  agoing,  obeys 
with  automatic  regularity  the  impulse  Imparted  to  it,  — 
the  law  in  its  constitution,  — and  admits  of  no  change. 
It  places  God  afar  off,  apart  from  the  world,  which  he 
governs  by  its  own  mechanism,  interfering  only  to 
repair  and  adjust  when  the  mechanism  is  out  of  gear. 
Is  it  not  more  philosophic  to  think  of  God  as  the  imma- 
nent, all-present  Source  of  life,  and  the  universe  as  the 
manifestation  of  that  life  ?  —  to  think  of  him,  not  as  apart 
from  his  works,  but  as  a  Spirit  pervading  and  possess- 
ing them  and  us, — he  in  us,  and  we  in  him,  —  and 
prayer  as  the  felt  contact  of  our  spirits  with  his?  If 
this  view  is  the  true  one,  then  the  question  whether 
God  is  exorable  is  already  answered.  We  may  boldly 
say  that  every  genuine  prayer  aifects  the  Deity  In  pro- 
portion to  the  faith  that  is  in  it.  Every  genuine  prayer 
is  a  positive  force  in  the  universe  of  things.  The  eter- 
nal Will  —  the  axis  of  creation  —  bows  and  dips  to 
human  entreaty.  The  world  of  spirits,  subsisting  and 
centred  in  God,  is  moved  by  it  as  the  sea  is  moved  by 
whatever  stirs  within  its  depths.  The  motion  may  not 
reach  to  the  outward,  visible  result  which  the  prayer 
contemplates.  It  may  want  the  requisite  force  for  that 
consummation.  But  every  prayer,  in  proportion  to  the 
force  that  is  in  it,  tends  to  that  result.  And  the  force 
that  is  in  it  is  the  measure  of  faith  which  inspires  it ; 
which  works  in  it  and  by  it.  Faith  is  the  hold  we  have 
of  the  Godhead.  Faith  is  a  power  which  sways  Om- 
nipotence. It  is  no  figure  of  speech,  no  oriental  exag- 
geration, when  Jesus  says,  "If  ye  have  faith,  all  things 


106       RELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

shall  be  possible  to  you."  It  is  impossible  to  set  any 
limit  to  this  power.  We  may  say,  without  irreverence, 
that  God  is  constrained  by  it ;  inasmuch  as  itself  is 
divine.  In  this  sense,  it  was  said,  "  The  Spirit  itself 
maketh  intercession  for  us."  The  Spirit  prays,  —  God 
acting  on  God. 

I  say,  then,  God  is  moved,  constrained  by  prayer. 
I  find  the  philosophy  which  denies  the  efficacy  of  prayer 
to  be  shallow  and  superficial.  A  more  profound  phi- 
losophy, a  more  faithful  analysis  of  all  the  elements 
involved  in  the  question,  will  lead  to  the  opposite  con- 
clusion. Every  sincere  prayer  is  effectual  to  some  ex- 
tent :  it  is  effectual  in  proportion  to  the  faith  that  is  in  it. 
The  prayer  of  perfect  faith  will  never  fail  of  its  answer. 

On  the  other  hand,  this  perfect  faith  is  itself  the 
inspiration  of  God,  and  not  to  be  attained  without  ab- 
solute surrender  to  the  supreme  Will. 

Faith  and  prayer  relate  to  each  other  as  inspiration 
and  aspiration,  breathing  in  and  breathing  out,  —  the 
systole  and  diastole  of  the  soul.  In  the  one,  we  im- 
bibe the  divine  life :  in  the  other,  we  express  it.  In 
faith,  the  Godhead  floods  the  soul  as  the  ocean  rushes 
inland  with  the  swelling  tide.  In  prayer,  the  soul  re- 
gurgitates again,  and  merges  itself  in  the  Divine. 

The  efficacy  of  prayer  depends  on  the  measure  of 
faith.  Only  that  which  we  ask  in  full  faith  are  we 
likely  to  receive.  No  rational  man  believes  that  he  can 
obtain  an  accession  to  his  proj)erty,  success  in  financial 
speculation,  or  any  worldly  good,  by  praying  for  it ;  be- 
cause no  one  who  has  well  considered  the  discipline  and 
ends  of  life  can  feel  so  assured  of  the  necessity  of  these 
things  to  his  well-being  as  to  ask  them  with  perfect 


THE   EXORABLE    GOD.  107 

faith.  A  lurking  unbelief  will  vitiate  the  truth  and 
efficacy  of  such  petitions  :  they  verify  the  saying,  "  Ye 
ask  and  receive  not,  because  ye  ask  amiss."  Hay  don, 
the  painter,  prayed  for  success  with  his  pictures,  intent 
only  on  the  personal  advantage  to  be  gained  by  them, 
and  did  not  succeed.  George  Miiller  prayed  for  pecu- 
niary succor  in  his  charities,  intent  on  the  good  of 
others,  and  again  and  again  received  an  answer  to  his 
supplications,  in  pecuniary  supplies. 

The  prayer  for  even  spiritual  good  may  remain  un- 
answered, if,  while  we  perceive  with  our  understanding 
the  need  of  divine  grace,  we  want  that  profound  con- 
viction and  fervent  desire  which  prompt  the  prayer  of 
faith.  Only  what  we  wish  do  we  really  pray  for ; 
and  all  our  wishes  are  prayers.  There  are  who  pray 
in  set  words  for  the  gifts  of  the  Spirit,  while  the 
heart's  unworded  collect  solicits  the  comforts  of  the 
flesh.  They  ask  forgiveness  of  sins,  and  mean  impu- 
nity ;  they  ask  salvation,  and  mean  prosperity,  like  the 
worshipper  stigmatized  by  the  Koman  satyrist,  who 
offered  his  prayer  in  due  form  to  Apollo,  but  prayed 
between  his  teeth  to  the  goddess  of  thieves  :  "O  fair 
Laverna !  grant  me  the  talent  to  cheat  and  defraud 
without  detection,  to  get  the  better  of  all  whom  I 
shall  deal  with,  at  the  same  time  to  appear  just  and 
holy  before  men."  It  is  not  inconsistent  with  the  theory 
of  prayer,  nor  any  proof  against  the  principle,  that 
many  prayers  should  fail  of  then'  purpose  :  on  the  con- 
trary, the  theory  itself  requires  that  they  should.  Only 
the  prayer  of  faith  is  ever  answered  to  the  suppliant. 

I  have  spoken  of  prayers  for  specific  objects ;   for  this 
was  the  topic  I  proposed  to  discuss.     But  the  asking 


108       RELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

of  favors  is  not  the  whole  nor  the  most  important  part  of 
prayer.  Nor  is  the  value  of  prayer  to  be  measured  by 
the  answer  in  kind.  Its  best  effect  is  that  about  which 
there  is  no  dispute.  There  are  many  states  and  acts 
of  the  mind,  beside  asking  of  favors,  which  partake,  in 
a  greater  or  less  degree,  of  tlie  nature  of  prayer.  Every 
reference  to  God  in  our  thoughts,  wishes,  or  actions,  is 
prayer.  Every  emotion  of  gratitude  for  blessings  en- 
joyed, every  feeling  of  contrition  for  evil  committed  or 
duty  neglected,  every  noble  aspiration,  every  good 
resolution,  every  resignation  to  God's  decree,  every 
meditation  on  divine  things,  is  prayer. 

There  are  many  who  complain  that  they  can  form  to 
themselves  no  distinct  conception  of  the  Being  to  whom 
prayer  is  addressed.  They  have  no  definite  object  be- 
fore the  mind.  God  seems  to  them  so  remote,  so 
inconceivable,  they  cannot  lay  hold  of  him  by  any  effort 
of  the  imagination,  or  fancy  themselves  in  real  com- 
munion with  him.  But  why  is  it  necessary  to  form 
a  distinct  conception  of  God  ?  Will  the  prayer  be  more 
effectual  because  addressed  to  a  mental  image,  —  a 
creature  of  the  imagination  ?  "  Beware  of  idols."  All 
that  is  necessary  is  the  impression,  the  conviction,  of 
overruling  Power,  divine  Beneficence,  incorruptible 
Justice,  unchangeable  Truth,  presiding  over  all  the 
course  of  things.  With  this  conviction,  let  the  soul 
go  into  itself,  and  consider  its  belongings,  and  consider 
its  wants,  and  breathe  its  desires  ;  not  attempt  to  form 
to  itself  any  notion  of  Divinity,  but  confine  itself  to  the 
thing,  to  the  subject  of  prayer, — its  needs,  its  aspirations, 
its  hopes.     Let  it  rouse  and  direct  itself  to  worthy  ends. 


THE    EXORABLE    GOD.  109 

under  a  sense  of  its  relation  to  the  Eternal,  its  moral 
responsibilities,  its  spiritual  calling;  —  that  is  prayer. 

The  real  difficulty  lies  behind  these  metaphysical 
objections.  There  is  a  sluggishness  of  mind  which 
prevents  it  from  collecting  itself  in  a  vigorous  effort  of 
self-communion.  There  is  a  coldness  of  heart  which 
makes  it  indiiferent  to  the  supreme  Good,  —  a  practical 
unbelief  which  shuts  the  soul  against  God  and  the  in- 
flux of  his  spirit.  If  these  obstacles  were  not,  there 
would  be  no  questioning.  The  spirit  of  prayer  would 
take  possession  of  the  soul,  and  keep  an  unbroken  com- 
munication with  the  secret  God. 

The  spirit  and  Hfe  of  prayer  is  the  consciousness  of 
God,  the  feeling  that  we  are  his,  that  he  is  ours,  that 
nothing  but  the  voluntary  aversion  of  our  spirits  can 
separate  us  from  him.     A  feeling  of  Deity  as  the  power 
by  which  we  live,  the  light  by  which  we  see,  the  great 
Reality  in  the  knowledge  of  whom  is  eternal  life,  and 
whose  participation  is  the  supreme  blessing.     Where 
this  consciousness  lives   and   burns,   there   is   prayer, 
though  not  always  expressed  in  words.     For  the  soul, 
in  its   highest   devotion,   is   content  to  repose  in  the 
thought  of  God,  asking  nothing,  seeking  nothing;  its 
whole  being  concentrated  in  the  one  unuttered  desire, 
"Thy  wiU  be  done!" 

There  are  times,  however,  when  the  feeling,  if  genu- 
ine, cannot  choose  but  utter  itself  in  words.  The  more 
intense  it  is,  the  more  apt  it  will  be  to  seek  that  vent. 
"  I  was  dumb  with  silence,"  says  David  :  "  I  held  my 
peace  even  from  good."  But,  "  while  I  mused,  the  fire 
burned  ;  then  spake  I  with  my  tongue." 


110       RELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

I  conclude  with  the  words  of  one  who,  more  than 
any  writer  of  the  English  tongue,  had  explored  this 
subject  in  its  breadth  and  depth,  and  has  written  most 
profoundly  concerning  it :  "  Poor  and  miserable  as  this 
life  is,  we  have  all  of  us  free  access  to  all  that  is  great 
and  good  and  haj3py  ;   and  we  carry  within  ourselves 
the  key  to  all  the  treasures  that  Heaven  can  bestow. 
We  starve  in  the  midst  of  plenty,  —  groan  under  in- 
firmities, with  the  remedy  in  our  own  hands ;  we  live 
and  die  without  knowing  and  feeling  any  thing  of  the 
one  only  Good,  whilst  we  have  it  in  our  power  to  know 
and  enjoy  it  as  really  and  truly  as  we  know  and  feel  the 
power  of  this  world.     For  heaven  is  as  near  to  our 
souls    as  this  world  is  to  our  bodies.   .   .   .   God,  the 
only  Good  of  all  intelligent  natures,  is  not  an  absent 
or  distant  God,  but  is  more  present  to  and  in  our  souls 
than  our  own  bodies  ;  and  we  are  strangers  to  heaven, 
and  without  God  in  the  world,  for  this   only  reason, 
that  we  want  the  spirit  of  prayer,  which  alone  can,  and 
which  never  fails  to,  unite  us  with  the  one  only  Good, 
and  to  open  heaven  and  the  kingdom  of  God  within  us. 
A  root  set  in  the  finest  soil  and  the  best  climate,  and 
blessed  with  all  that  sun,  air,  and  rain  can  do  for  it,  is 
not  in   so   sure  a  way  of  its  growth  to   perfection   as 
every  man  may  be  who  aspires  after  that  which  God  is 
ready  and  infinitely  desirous  to  give  him.     For  the  sun 
meets  not  the  springing  bud  that  stretches  towards  him 
with  half  that  certainty  with  which  God,  the  source  of 
all  good,  communicates  himself  to  the  soul  that  longs 
to  partake  of  him."  * 

*  Law's  "  Spirit  of  Pi-ayer." 


VI. 

THE   OLD   ENIGMA. 


VI. 

THE   OLD  ENIGMA. 

Whoso  interrogates  the  order  of  nature  from  the 
ground  of  theism  soon  stumbles  on  the  world-old  prob- 
lem of  Evil, — its  origin,  reason,  and  right  to  be  in  the 
scheme  of  things.  The  problem  states  itself  thus  in 
our  inquiry.  If  a  God  created  and  governs  this  world 
of  ours,  —  a  God  all  powerful,  wise,  and  good,  —  why- 
are  these  attributes  so  imperfectly  expressed  in  creation  ? 
Why  this  immense  deduction  from  the  good,  which  a 
rule  of  perfect  Love,  conducted  by  infinite  Wisdom, 
ought,  it  is  believed,  to  secure  to  its  subjects?  Why 
does  eternal  Goodness  permit  the  wide-spread  evil  with 
which  creation  groans  ?  Why  this  dark  shadow  which 
everywhere  bounds  our  capacity,  our  well-being,  our 
life?  If  only  the  guilty  suffered,  and  suffered  only  in 
the  measure  of  their  guilt,  such  suffering  would  seem 
but  just  retribution,  the  wise  operations  of  moral  laws. 
But  over  and  above  the  evil  due  to  man's  free  agency, — 
the  woes  inflicted  by  human  passion  and  all  the  misery 
incident  to  mortal  folly  and  crime, — beside  all  this, 
which  constitutes  so  large  a  part  of  the  burdens  of  hu- 
manity, we  are  persecuted  with  evil  which  lies  in  the 
constitution  of  things,  elemental  plagues,  hostilities  of 

nature,  national  calamities,   tempest,  blight,  physical 

8  [1131 


114      RELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

infirmities,  monsters,  madness,  and  all  inevitable  ills. 
The  universe  is  full  of  them.  Nature  at  her  brisrhtest 
conceals  beneath  that  sun-beaming  countenance  innu- 
merable and  inestimable  griefs.  "All  being  is  in  pain," 
said  Paul.  "Creation  travails."  —  "The  heavens  and 
the  earth,  and  things  without  life,"  said  Philo,  "may  be 
seen  to  suffer."  Philosophers,  ancient  and  modern. 
Christian  and  Pagan,  have  stood  perplexed  and  aghast 
in  the  presence  of  the  unveiled  enormous  woe.  One 
of  the  most  recent  denounces  the  optimism  which  can 
see  only  good  in  the  arrangements  of  nature,  and 
which  deems  that  this  world  of  ours  is  the  best  possible 
world.  "Evil,"  he  says,  "is  real,  colossal,  incessant; 
the  world  is  bad ;  it  is  a  misery  to  have  been  born." 
"  Life  is  the  natural  history  of  sorrow ;  it  is  the  war  of 
all  against  all,  an  internecine  strife  for  ever  renewed  from 
age  to  age,  till  the  crust  of  the  planet  shall  peel  off 
piecemeal." — "  There  are  miracles  of  destructiveness  in 
nature,  — in  the  human  as  well  as  the  brute  creation.  It 
is  not  only  in  the  solitudes  of  the  new  world  that  plants 
of  gorgeous  hues  delight  in  putrid  miasmata,  and  drink 
the  death  which  makes  their  life ;  it  is  not  there  only 
that  giant  oaks  are  strangled  by  creeping  vines,  and  die 
in  their  grasp.  It  is  not  in  Australia  only  that  the  ant, 
by  a  prodigy  of  suicidal  instinct,  devours  itself,  nor  only 
in  the  ocean-deeps  that  the  young  polype  nourishes  itself 
with  the  substance  of  its  sire.  Man  surpasses  all  these 
horrors,  and  the  word  of  Scripture  is  for  ever  true : 
*  There  are  those  who  devour  men  as  they  eat  bread.' "  * 
Evil  inheres  in  the  constitution  of  things.     The  most 

*  Schopenhauer. 


THE   OLD   ENIG3IA.  115 

cheerful  philosophy  cannot  blink  the  fact,  however 
lightly  it  may  esteem  it,  however  hopefully  it  may  reason 
about  it.  Evil  abounds:  what  shall  we  say  of  it? 
why  tolerated  by  perfect  Love?  why  uncorrected  by 
almighty  Power?  how  reconciled  with  infinite  Wis- 
dom? This  is  the  question  on  which  age  after  age  has 
tried  its  skill,  and  on  which  all  philosophies  thus  far 
have  foundered,  if  the  test  of  philosophic  success  be  an 
answer  at  once  so  luminous  and  so  decisive  as  to  solve 
every  doubt,  to  satisfy  every  scruple  of  reason  and  piety, 
and  to  stop  all  further  inquiry. 

The  oldest  solution  of  the  great  problem  is  also  the 
most  natural.  It  seems  to  have  been  the  first  rude 
effort  of  speculative  thought  in  the  world's  infancy,  and 
formed  the  basis  of  one  of  the  most  ancient  of  historic 
religions.  The  answer  which  the  Persian  gave  to  the 
question  concerning  the  origin  of  evil,  was  the  theory  of 
two  Gods,  —  a  holy,  just,  and  benevolent  God,  who 
created  all  that  is  good  and  healthful  and  blessed  in 
nature,  all  that  is  fruitful  of  life  and  joy  ;  a  God  whose 
symbol  is  light,  and  whose  truest  visible  type  is  the  sun  : 
and  opposed  to  him  a  wicked  and  malevolent  God, 
whose  symbol  is  darkness  ;  who  made  all  hateful  and 
baleful  creatures, — whatever  hurts  and  destroys,  —  and 
to  whom  is  attributed  all  the  evil  that  is  in  the  world. 
A  fras^ment  of  this  Persian  faith  was  introduced  throuo;h 
Judaism  into  Christianity,  and  still  survives  in  the  pop- 
ular notion  of  the  Devil  j  who  formerly  occupied  a 
larger  place  and  played  a  more  important  part  in  Chris- 
tian systems  of  theology  and  philosophy  than  he  does  in 
the  modified  creeds  of  our  time.  Physical  as  well  as 
moral  evil,  calamities,  and  disasters,  hail,  blight,  light- 


116       RELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

ning,  wrecks,  and  hurts  of  all  kinds,  were  ascribed  to 
him  by  our  ancestors.  Luther  gravely  charges  him 
with  the  floods  of  the  river  Saale,  with  fires  in  the  for- 
ests of  Thuringia,  and  the  sulphur  in  its  wines. 

The  Satanic  theory  of  the  origin  of  evil  has  the 
advantage  of  great  simplicity :  it  offers,  if  one  could 
accept  it,  an  easy  and  sufficient  explanation  of  all  exist- 
ing and  all  possible  evil,  and  absolves  the  divine  rule  of 
all  complicity  with  it.  But  it  does  not  relieve  the  theo- 
logical difficulty  involved  in  the  incompatibility  of  evil 
with  the  supposition  of  infinite  power  and  wisdom  in 
the  God  of  our  worship.  On  the  contrary,  it  bounds 
and  circumscribes  that  infinity  ;  and  while  it  absolves  the 
divine  rule  of  the  charge  of  willingly  grieving  or  afflict- 
ing, it  also  limits  that  rule  by  the  empire,  larger  or 
smaller,  as  we  may  figure  it,  of  a  border-power  and  an 
outlying  hostile  State.  It  disturbs  and  degi-ades  our 
idea  of  God  by  circumscribing  his  sway.  It  is  no 
longer  Omnipotence  that  rules,  but  Omnipotence  quali- 
fied by  the  Devil.  Moreover,  although  it  explains  the 
existence  of  evil,  it  presents  another  problem  of  equally 
difficult  solution.  The  hypothesis  is  convenient  till  we 
look  behind  it,  and  then  we  fall  upon  a  new  entangle- 
ment greater  than  the  first.  The  Devil  explains  every 
thing,  but  who  shall  explain  the  Devil  ?  A  fallen  angel, 
shall  we  say  ?  —  then  explain  to  us  that  fall. 

And  here  we  come  upon  another  proposed  solution  of 
the  problem  of  evil,  of  wide  acceptation  in  the  Christian 
Church,  —  the  fall,  whether  of  angels  in  heaven  or  of 
man  on  the  earth ;  more  commonly  understood  of  the 
latter;  or  let  us  say,  sin,  the  necessary  antecedent  of 
the  fall,  and  also  its  consequent.     Sin,  it  is  contended 


THE   OLD    ENIGMA.  117 

by  Christian  theologians  of  a  school  which  still  very 
widely  prevails,  is  the  cause  of  all  the  evils  that  afflict 
mankind.  All  physical  infirmities,  ails,  and  plagues, 
nay,  all  cosmic  disturbances,  the  war  of  the  elements, 
all  calamities  that  befall,  are  traceable  and  rightly 
attributable  to  man's  transgression.  The  world  was 
what  it  should  be,  a  garden  of  delights,  the  Eden  of 
the  Bible,  the  golden  age  of  Gentile  tradition,  —  no 
noxious  plants,  no  venomous  reptiles,  no  beasts  of  pre}", 
no  briers  or  thorns,  no  tempests  and  no  sterility,  no 
need  of  heavy  and  exhausting  toil,  no  burdensome 
cares,  no  aches  or  pains, — till  man  transgressed. 
Then,  suddenly,  nature  was  put  out  of  joint,  the  uni- 
verse was  dislocated  :  all  these  plagues  and  woes  rushed 
in ;  and  the  enemies  of  human  happiness  hastened  to 
their  prey  as  vultures  and  vermin  flock  to  the  banquet 
of  corruption.  This  theory,  which  throws  on  the  free- 
will of  man  the  responsibility  of  natural  as  well  as  moral 
evil,  seems  at  first  to  honor  God  in  affirming  a  creation 
originally  free  from  the  imperfections  and  disorders,  the 
discomforts  and  disasters,  which  now  attend  it,  and  which 
only  opposition  to  God's  will  could  engender.  But 
rightly  considered,  critically  weighed,  it  furnishes  no 
satisfactory  vindication  of  the  fact  and  agency  of  evil  in 
the  scheme  of  things.  What  is  gained  by  it  for  one  of 
the  divine  attributes  is  lost  to  others.  It  presents  a 
God  whose  plans  are  traversed,  his  agency  thwarted, 
his  purposes  of  mercy  defeated,  by  his  creature.  The 
divine  Artificer  constructs  a  world  "  of  absolute  perfec- 
tion," exempt  from  all  harm,  fruitful  of  blessing,  and 
only  blessing  :  his  creature  disobeys,  and  constrains  him 
to  undo  his  work,  to  remodel  the  universe  on  a  baser 


118       RELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

scale,  adjusting  it  to  man's  unworthiness.  So  Milton's 
great  verse,  the  highest  expression  which  Christian 
literature  has  given  to  this  hypothesis,  represents  the 
orio-in  of  evil  in  the  natural  world.  The  Creator,  he 
says,  after  Adam's  transgression — 

"  Calling  forth  by  name 
His  mighty  angels,  gave  them  several  charge 
As  sorted  best  with  present  things.    The  sun 
Had  first  his  precept  so  to  move,  so  shine, 
As  might  affect  the  earth  with  cold  and  heat 
Scarce  tolerable;  and  from  the  North  to  call 
Decrepit  Winter,  from  the  South  to  bring 
Solstitial  Summer's  heat- 
To  the  winds  they  set 
Their  corners,  when  with  bluster  to  confound 
Sea,  air,  and  shore,  the  thunder  when  to  roll 
With  terror  through  the  dark,  aerial  hall. 
Some  say  he  bid  his  angels  turn  askance 
The  poles  of  earth  twice  ten  degrees  and  more 
From  the  sun's  axle.     They  with  labor  pushed 
Oblique  the  eccentric  globe,    .    .    . 
.     .     .    To  bring  in  change 
Of  seasons  to  each  clime;  else  had  the  Spring 
Perpetual  smiled  on  earth  with  verdant  flowers. 

These  changes  in  the  heavens,  though  slow,  produced 
Like  change  on  sea  and  land;  sidereal  blast, 
Vapor  and  mist  and  exhalation  hot, 
Corrupt,  and  pestilent    .    .    . 
.     .    .    Thus  began 
Outrage  from  lifeless  things    .    . 
Beast  now  with  beast  'gan  war,  and  fowl  with  fowl, 
And  fish  with  fish ;  to  graze  the  herb  all  leaving. 
Devoured  each  other." 

Such,  poetically  set  forth,  is  the  theory  of  physical 
evil  by  moral  delinquency.  Making  all  needful  allow- 
ance for  the  uses  and  laws  of  poetic  representation,  and 
granting,  as  we  needs  must,  that  a  large  proportion  of 
the  troubles  and  disasters  that  afflict  mankind  —  some 


THE    OLD   ENIGMA.  119 

bodily  infirmities  and  most  civil  disorders  —  are  the  fruit 
of  sin,  I  cannot  persuade  myself  that  man's  transgres- 
sion has  affected  the  poise  of  tlie  planet  and  changed 
the  angle  of  the  earth's  axis  with  the  plane  of  the  eclip- 
tic from  a  right  to  an  oblique  one  ;  or  that  disobedience 
to  the  moral  law  accumulated  the  ice  of  the  poles  and 
the  sands  of  the  desert,  giving  rise  to  the  tempests 
which  desolate  sea  and  land  ;  nor  yet  that  vicious  indul- 
gence is  the  cause  of  all  the  earthquakes  and  all  the 
malaria,  and  the  blight  and  the  famine,  that  distress  the 
world.  In  fact,  there  is  no  pretence  of  any  natural 
connection  in  these  matters  :  it  is  not  pretended  that  sin, 
by  natural  and  necessary  sequence,  entails  these  disor- 
ders ;  but  that  God,  by  a  special  act  of  penal  legislation, 
avenges  sin  by  deranging  the  spheres  and  depraving  the 
globe.  However  it  may  flatter  the  poetic  imagination, 
this  theory  of  the  origin  of  evil  fails  to  satisfy  universal 
reason,  and  would  scarcely  merit  a  moment's  attention, 
were  it  nx)t  still  stoutly  defended  by  writers  of  our 
time. 

Another  solution  of  this  problem,  or  rather  a  way 
of  disposing  of  it,  is  what  may  be  termed  the  heroic 
method,  as  taught  and  professed,  and  to  some  extent 
practised,  by  the  Stoics.  It  consists  in  denying  the 
existence  of  evil.  In  indifference  to  all  the  vicissitudes  of 
life ;  esteeming  as  equally  vain  what  men  call  good  and 
ill ;  serenely  accepting,  or  rather  ignoring,  pain,  priva- 
tion, loss,  and  want,  as  things  external  and  foreign  to 
the  soul,  which  therefore  ought  not  to  disturb  its  tran- 
quillity, nor  discompose  the  supreme  content,  which, 
based  on  the  soul  itself,  is  complete  and  impregnable. 
Here  is  no  attempt  to  answer  the  question,  "  Whence 


120       RELIGION  WITHm  THE  BOUNDS   OF  THEISM. 

and  why  the  evil  of  this  world  ? "  but  only  a  sublime 
irrecognition  of  any  such  question  to  be  propounded. 
There  is  no  evil,  the  Stoics  said  :  no  evil  and  no  good 
to  the  wise,  in  things  external ;  no  pleasure  and  no  pain 
derivable  from  them.  Of  this  doctrine  a  critic  justly 
remarks:  "It  may  be  sublime,  but  is  none  the  less 
absurd."  It  is  worthy  of  note,  that  the  Stoic  philoso- 
phy flourished  most  in  the  darkest  period  of  the  world's 
history.  These  Stoics,  says  the  critic,  were  optimists 
indeed,  "  optimists  at  the  table  of  Nero  and  in  the  gar- 
dens of  Tiberius.  It  was  the  enormity  of  evil  which 
made  them  Sophists.  They  denied  it  in  order  not  to 
curse  it :  they  denied  it  in  order  to  conceal  it  from  their 
own  eyes.  By  force  of  pride  or  of  meanness,  they  acted 
an  impossible  part.  AYounded  on  all  sides,  wounded 
unto  death,  they  declared  tliemselves  invulnerable. 
O  inanity  of  wisdom  !  .  .  .  They  wished  to  appear  erect 
when  already  prostrate.  .  .  .  They  sought  to  extract 
happiness  from  the  bitterest  rinds  of  pain,  and  to 
make  us  believe  in  felicity  in  the  midst  of  that  bath 
of  blood  and  crime  known  as  the  despotism  of  the 
emperors."  It  is  needless  to  enlarge  on  the  theory  of 
the  Stoics.  Whatever  value  it  may  have  as  a  practical 
philosophy,  as  a  theory  the  mere  statement  is  its  own 
refutation. 

One  other  solution  of  the  question  in  debate  I  can 
only  glance  at,  although,  in  my  judgment,  the  most 
defensible  that  has  ever  been  propounded.  It  is  that 
already  alluded  to  in  the  word  "optimism."  This  view 
supposes  that  God's  creation  is  a  perfect  work,  and 
the  world  in  which  we  live  the  best  possible  world  on 
the    whole ;    not   the   best   possible   to   the   individual 


THE   OLD   ENIGMA.  121 

at  any  given  moment,  but  the  best  possible  on  the 
whole  :  all  creatures  considered,  and  all  the  ages  of  man 
taken  into  the  account.  It  supposes  evil  to  be,  in  the 
first  place,  a  necessary  accompaniment  of  finite  being ; 
a  condition  inherent  in  the  act  of  creation ;  a  conse- 
quence resulting  from  the  very  limitations  which  bound 
individual  existence.  And,  secondly,  it  supposes  evil  to 
be  a  necessary  condition  of  development  and  growth. 
And  this  development  and  growth  —  not  present  su- 
preme satisfaction  —  it  justly  assumes  to  be  the  true 
ideal  of  human  life.  There  are  some  things  of  which 
it  is  no  disparagement  of  infinite  Power  and  Wisdom 
to  say,  that  they  are  impossible  even  with  God.  God 
could  not  make  an  infinite,  and  therefore  not  a  perfect 
beinor,  —  much  less  a  universe  of  such  beins^s.  He  could 
not  make  an  imperfect  being  perfectly  happy.  The 
limit  of  nature  is  the  limit  of  enjoyment ;  the  end  of 
power,  the  beginning  of  discontent.  And  yet  a  world 
of  such  beings  may  be  a  perfect  world ;  that  is,  the  best 
possible  world  to  the  sum  of  the  beings  contained  in  it, 
affording  the  greatest  possible  happiness  to  the  greatest 
number.  And  that  is  all  that  reason  needs,  to  vindicate 
divine  perfection.  Again  :  it  was  possible  for  God  to 
create  a  world  in  which  there  should  be  no  suffering. 
But  the  absence  of  suffering,  so  far  from  assuring  the 
greatest  conceivable  amount  of  happiness,  maybe  easily 
shown  to  be  incompatible  with  that  amount  of  happi- 
ness which  actually  exists,  of  which  the  two  most 
essential  ingredients  are  progress  and  hope. 

On  these  two  fundamental  conditions, — imperfection, 
a  necessity  of  finite  existence  on  the  one  hand ;  and 
progress,  the  highest  good,  on  the  other,  —  optimism 


122       RELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

constructs  its  solution  of  the  problem  of  evil,  and  bases 
the  proposition  of  a  best  possible  world.  I  am  far 
from  maintaining  that  this  theory  furnishes  a  full  and 
sufficient  answer  to  the  question  we  are  considering,  and 
all  the  questions  connected  with  it.  I  only  contend,  that, 
so  far  as  it  reaches,  it  is  the  most  satisfactory  answer 
that  has  yet  been  given ;  most  truly  reverent  toward 
God,  because  most  trustful  in  divine  wisdom  and  good- 
ness ;  most  ennobling,  because  replete  with  encourage- 
ment and  hope  for  man. 

But  after  all  is  said  that  philosophy  has  to  say  on 
this  subject,  however  satisfactory  and  incontrovertible 
in  theory,  the  ills  of  life  present  an  inexplicable  mys- 
tery still  to  the  heart.  We  may  talk  about  the  best 
possible  world,  and  may  tliink  we  believe  in  it ;  but  a 
great  sorrow  makes  us  forget  all  that ;  and  we  feel  in 
the  marrow  of  our  bones  how  insufficient  for  the  heart 
is  every  solution  which  philosophy  can  offisr  of  this  ter- 
rible enigma.  The  enigma  is  not  solved  by  philosophy, 
but  solved,  if  at  all,  by  an  act  of  faith.  Faith  has  its 
own  optimism,  very  different  from  that  of  the  under- 
standing, or  very  differently  put.  It  is  perfectly  ex- 
pressed in  that  homely  phrase,  which  contains,  I  think, 
the  sum  of  all  wisdom  in  relation  to  this  matter  :  "  It  is 
all  for  the  best."  Not  Seneca  nor  Leibnitz  has  said 
any  thing  which  hits  the  heart  of  the  matter  like  this. 

"  It  is  all  for  the  best."  All  plagues  and  harms  that 
lacerate  the  soul,  the  war  of  the  elements,  the  wrath  of 
man,  "the  slings  and  arrows  of  outrageous  fortune,"  all 
wounds  of  the  heart,  all  losses  and  deaths,  are  ministers 
of  good :  a  divine  purpose  works  in  all.  With  these 
stones  in  our  path,  the  unchangeable  Love  is  laying  the 


THE    OLD   ENIGMA.  123 

courses  of  the  house  of  life,  strono^  airalnst  all  the  acci- 
dents  of  earth  and  all  the  wear  of  time.  As  part  and 
product  of  this  earthly  world,  we  belong  to  the  system 
of  subject -nature,  we  are  tossed  in  its  storms  and 
mixed  up  with  its  wrecks.  "We  that  are  in  this  taber- 
nacle do  groan,  being  burthened."  Subject-nature 
travails  in  us  ;  but  the  travail  is  the  birth-pang  out  of 
which  is  the  life,  secure  within,  tempest-proof,  unracked 
by  mortal  throes. 

All  that  reason  teaches  of  God  is  expressed  in  the 
saying,  "God  is  Law."  All  that  religion  teaches  is 
expressed  in  the  saying,  "  God  is  Love."  Each  of 
these  aspects  is  the  other's  complement. 

1.  God  is  Law.  That  law  embraces  all  that  is  or 
can  be  in  the  universe  of  things,  —  the  wildest  freaks 
of  chance,  the  most  exorbitant  anomalies  in  nature,  the 
toughest  spasms,  the  slightest  incidents  of  matter  or 
mind,  storm,  earthquake,  fire,  the  shoot  of  an  ava- 
lanche, the  dropping  of  a  leaf,  the  eccentricities  of  a 
comet,  the  vagaries  of  a  dream,  the  birth  of  a  monster, 
the  suggestion  of  a  thought,  every  stroke  of  good  for- 
tune, every  mishap  that  befalls.  There  is  no  accident 
in  the  scheme  of  God.  What  is  casual  and  exceptional 
is  as  much  determined  as  what  is  stated  and  constant ; 
the  earthquake  which  swallows  up  a  city,  as  much  as 
the  motion  of  the  earth  on  its  axis ;  the  lightning  which 
shatters  the  human  frame,  as  much  as  the  electric  cur- 
rents which  traverse  the  globe ;  the  tempest  which 
dashes  the  ship  upon  the  rocks,  as  much  as  the  earth's 
atmosphere ;  the  disease  which  lays  waste,  as  much  as 
the  physical  economy  it  invades.     Life  would  be  intol- 


124       RELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

erable  on  any  other  terms.  More  grievous  than  any 
actual  calamity  would  be  the  thought,  that  calamity  is 
unwilled  and  undesigned ;  that  man  is  at  the  mercy  of 
a  lawless  power.  We  are  compassed  about  with  perils 
and  pains  ;  but  inviolable  law  encompasses  them.  And 
evil  is  not  the  fatal  misstep  of  groping,  reeling  acci- 
dent, but  the  conscious,  measured  tread  of  providential 
and  paternal  Power,  —  a  part  of  that  Providence  which 
is  co-extensive  with  the  uttermost  range  of  being,  and 
co-present  to  every  movement  within  its  bounds ;  to 
which  the  farthest  star  beyond  the  dream  of  astronomy 
is  not  too  remote,  nor  the  smallest  animalcule  within 
the  surmise  of  zoology  too  minute. 

Why  evil  exists  is  a  problem  Avhich  no  philosophy 
will  ever  solve  with  entire  satisfaction  of  all  the  ques- 
tions involved  in  it  and  all  the  minds  perplexed  by  it. 
Pursue  it,  and  it  brings  you  at  last  to  the  previous 
question.  Why  God  created  a  universe  at  all?  Why 
went  he  forth  of  himself  in  creative  action?  Why, 
rather,  did  he  not  abide  in  himself,  sufficient  to  himself? 
Whatever  is  created  is  finite ;  and  a  finite  world  implies 
evil,  because  it  implies  limitation,  imperfection.  The 
imperfect  striving  after  perfection, — this  is  Reason's 
account  of  the  origin  of  evil. 

2.  God  is  Love.  And,  because  he  is  Love,  he  must 
will  the  best.  This  is  Faith's  theodicy.  Faith  does 
not  reason  about  the  limits  and  possibilities  of  things  : 
it  judges  that  God  might  make  men  happy  in  unin- 
terrupted enjoyment,  if  enjoyment  were  the  supreme 
good.  But  life  has  something  better  than  enjoyment. 
The  best  of  life  is  the  work  which  it  brings,  and  growth 
by   work.     Prolonged   enjoyment  hinders   growth   by 


THE    OLD    ENIGMA.  125 

makinof  us  content  without  it.  SufFerinof  furthers 
growth  by  the  stimulus  of  unrest. 

Faith  teaches  that  evil  is  good  undeveloped,  —  a  part 
of  the  process  of  which  good  is  the  end.  It  is  the 
bitter,  biting  oil  which  makes  the  flavor  of  the  orange 
and  the  peach. 

View  life  as  discipline,  and  you  have  the  solution  of 
all  its  enigmas,  and  a  justification  of  all  its  ills.  Use 
it  as  discipline,  and  you  can  never  be  quite  overcome  by 
its  sorrows.  It  is  because  we  do  not  so  view  it  and  use 
it  that  we  cjuarrel  with  our  lot.  Believe  that  your  lot, 
however  crossed,  is  the  best  possible  lot  for  you,  the 
only  one  by  which  the  ends  of  life  for  you  can  be 
attained.  Believe,  in  all  tribulation  and  trial,  that 
God  has  considered  your  particular  case,  and  adjusted 
the  course  of  nature  to  it,  as  if  nature  existed  for  your 
behoof;  not  to  gratify  your  selfish  appetite,  not  to 
pamper  your  sense  with  sweets,  or  your  pride  with 
pomps,  but  to  draw  from  you  the  uttermost  that  is  in 
you  of  worth  and  of  work. 

The  contradiction  between  the  real  and  the  ideal  is 
the  standing  tragedy  of  human  life,  in  which  all  trage- 
dies and  griefs  are  comprised.  The  order  of  events 
contradicts  the  standard  in  our  minds,  contradicts  the 
wish  in  our  hearts.  All  our  jeremiads  are  variations 
of  this  theme.  Man's  business  is  to  reduce  this  contra- 
diction by  conforming  his  ideal,  in  things  fixed,  to  the 
scheme  of  God,  and  by  compelling  the  actual,  in  things 
not  fixed,  to  take  the  form  of  his  ideal ..  There  is  in 
him  a  power  transcending  all  material  agents,  greater 
than  all  the  forces  of  this  world,  and  able  to  bend  them 


126      RELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

to  his  own  behoof.  As  fast  and  as  far  as  our  knowl- 
edge extends,  we  push  our  conquests  over  nature,  and 
become  the  Providence  of  this  lower  world.  The  re- 
fractory elements,  rude  Titans  of  the  realms  of  matter, 
are  brought  under.  One  by  one,  the  genius  of  hu- 
manity encounters  these  enemies,  grapples  with  them, 
subdues  them,  makes  them  servants  of  his  need.  For- 
ests are  levelled,  mountains  scaled,  gulfs  bridged ;  fire, 
vapor,  and  all  deeps  acknowledge  the  sovereignty  of 
man ;  heat,  cold,  lightning,  sj^ace  and  time  confess  liis 
might.  "  Thou  madest  him  to  have  dominion  over  all 
the  works  of  thy  hands."  Could  he  but  learn  to  sub- 
due himself  as  well ;  could  he  but  achieve  a  dominion 
as  complete  in  the  moral  world  as  in  the  natural ; 
could  he  but  chain  the  rebellious  Titans  of  the  breast ; 
— what  an  empire  were  his  !  How  vast  his  realm,  how 
sure  his  sway  !  No  contradiction,  then,  between  the 
real  and  the  ideal,  when  every  wish  and  purpose  of 
man's  heart  obeys  the  divine  law,  and  the  steadfast 
Order  reigns  in  his  will  as  in  his  destiny. 


VII. 
THE  OLD  DISCORD. 


vn. 

THE  OLD  DISCORD. 

Among  the  traits  which  distinguish  man  from  other 
known  orders  of  being,  we  find  that  pecuKarity  of 
moral  self-contradiction  which  we  term  "  sin."  Man, 
so  far  as  we  know,  is  the  only  being  who  sins  :  that  is, 
the  only  moral  being,  the  only  one  who  sits  in  judg- 
ment on  himself,  the  only  one  capable  of  conscious 
guilt. 

For  herein  consists  the  essence  of  sin.*  It  is  not 
the  wrong  act,  but  the  wronged  consciousness,  the 
offended  genius,  defection  from  the  inner,  holy  self. 
Sin  does  not  exist  until  it  is  perceived ;  in  other  words, 
there  is  no  sin  but  conscious  sin.  "If  a  man,"  says 
Novalis,  "could  suddenly  believe  in  sincerity  that  he 
was  moral,  he  would  be  so."  It  follows  that  sin  ceases 
when  the  consciousness  thereof  ceases,  whether  the  ces- 
sation result  from  atonement  or  consummate  deprav- 
ity. "  Sin,  when  it  is  finished,  bringeth  forth  death," 
—  the  death  of  the  moral  nature  to  which  alone  sin  can 
be  ascribed.  Devils  (if  such  beings  exist)  are  sinless. 
Possessing  no  higher  self,  they  experience  no  internal 


*  From  the  German  Siinde:  the  root  is  found  in  the  word  sUhnen,  to 
expiate.  It  means  that  which  requires  to  be  expiated,  the  unatoned  self- 
alieuation,  which  is  alienation  jrom  God. 

9  [129] 


130       KELTGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

discord,  no  self-alienation,  but  accept  and  rejoice  in  evil 
as  their  normal  state. 

Within  the  known  world,  the  sense  of  guilt  is  a 
purely  and  peculiarly  human  experience.  No  creature 
but  man  is  conscious  of  wrong  in  the  moral  sense 
of  that  term.  Other  creatures  appear  to  transgress ; 
but  transgression  in  them  is  obedience  to  a  law  more 
binding  at  the  moment  than  that  which  they  vio- 
late. Where  they  deviate  from  the  given  track,  their 
very  deviations  are  justified  by  imperious  necessity : 
they  may  seem  to  go  astray,  but  they  are  never  morally 
wrong.  Amenable  only  to  the  law  of  instinct,  their 
aberrations  are  all  lawful,  as  the  irregularities  in  the 
heavenly  bodies,  once  supposed  to  be  imperfections  of 
the  solar  system  and  to  threaten  eventual  dissolution, 
are  proved  by  science  to  have  their  own  law  to  which 
they  yield  punctual  obedience ;  a  limit  which  they  never 
exceed,  and  a  compensation  which  adjusts  and  corrects 
the  threatened  disturbance.  There  are  acts  of  brute 
animals,  especially  of  such  as  man  has  impressed  and 
trained  to  his  service,  which  seem  on  the  surface  to 
be  morally  wrong  because  we  impute  to  them  our 
own  associations,  because  we  ascribe  to  them  liberty 
of  choice,  and  moral  perceptions.  But  the  liberty  of 
choice  is  only  apparent,  or  does  not  exist  to  such  an 
extent  as  to  constitute  accountableness  :  moral  percep- 
tions are  altogether  wanting.  The  sense  of  wrong  is 
not  in  their  experience :  what  has  that  appearance  in 
the  looks  and  motions  of  domestic  animals  is  due  to 
fear,  and  possibly  to  shame,  but  never,  I  suppose,  to 
conscious  guilt. 

The  sense  of  guilt  is  a  thing,  unknown  beyond  the 


THE   OLD   DISCORD.  131 

sphere  of  self-consciousness,  i.e.  of  humanity.  Nature 
bears  not  this  stain  on  her  brow,  feels  not  this  sting  in 
her  breast.  There  is  no  self-questioning  in  nature,  no 
scruple,  no  repentance.  Stars,  plants,  and  beasts 
rejoice  in  eternal  innocence.  They  obey  without  a 
struggle  the  law  prescribed  for  them.  Impulse  is  their 
religion,  instinct  their  duty  :  they  experience  no  con- 
flict with  opposing  passions  in  what  they  do,  and  no 
compunction  when  it  is  done.  They  know  no  law  but 
the  moment's  choice  or  the  moment's  necessity.  The 
law  in  their  members  is  also  the  law  of  their  mind. 
Man  alone  is  capable  of  guilt,  the  only  being  whose 
nature  contradicts  itself,  the  only  being  who  feels  re- 
morse ;  who  does  that  which  he  would  not,  and  repents 
what  he  does.  Man  alone  "perceives  another  law"  in 
his  mind ;  the  law  of  duty,  which  he  feels  to  be  the 
paramount  law  of  his  nature,  — a  moral  statute,  whose 
claim  he  feels  to  be  more  imperative  than  any  instinct 
or  impulse  beside,  and  whose  precepts  he  cannot  trans- 
gress without  crime. 

This,  then,  is  the  peculiarity  of  the  moral  law,  dis- 
tinguishing it  from  every  other,  and  distinguishing  man, 
as  sole  subject  of  that  law^,  from  the  brute  creation,  — 
that  the  violation  of  it  carries  a  sting  essentially  different 
from  all  other  suffering,  —  the  sting  of  conscious  guilt. 
Whence  this  anomaly  of  human  experience  ?  What  is 
the  import  of  this  sensation?  Other  laws  may  be 
transgressed  with  impunity,  so  far  as  the  mind  is  af- 
fected by  transgression.  The  penalty  affects  the  body 
only.  If  the  State  should  enact  a  law  requiring  me  to 
be  a  spy  upon  my  neighbor,  or  to  aid  in  enslaving  a 
brother-man,  I  should  feel  no  compunction  in  refusing 


132      RELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

obedience.  But,  when  I  have  consciously  wronged 
another,  my  soul  is  troubled  by  the  thought  of  that 
wrong;  and  the  pain  I  incur  by  it  exceeds,  if  my  con- 
science is  tender,  the  pain  I  inflict.  What  is  the 
import  of  that  sensation?  what  means  the  sense  of 
guilt  ? 

It  means  that  I  ought  to  have  done  differently.  And 
the  ought  apparently  implies  the  could ;  the  sense  of 
obligation  pre-supposes  the  power  to  act  in  accordance 
with  my  moral  perception,  or  pre-supposes,  at  least,  a 
belief  in  that  power.  And  yet,  if  I  go  back  in  my 
recollection  of  such  a  case,  and  recall  its  circumstances, 
and  the  motive  power  accruing  therefrom,  I  find  an 
overpowering  impulse  constraining  me,  —  an  impulse 
which,  placed  as  I  was,  with  the  moral  power  which  I 
then  possessed,  I  could  not  resist.  The  ought  does 
not  alwavs  secure  the  can.  Moral  strens^th  is  not 
always  commensurate  with  moral  perception.  But  the 
judgment  of  conscience  is  none  the  less  true ;  the  pang 
of  conscious  guilt  is  no  illusion.  The  moral  obligation 
implies  the  moral  power,  but  does  not,  of  itself,  secure 
for  any  given  exigency  the  requisite  degree  of  moral 
strength.  It  implies  the  moral  power  as  a  possible  and 
needful  acquirement,  not  as  a  present,  fixed  possession  ; 
it  implies  it  as  something  to  be  developed  and  perfected 
in  us,  not  as  sometliing  already  conferred  in  full  per- 
fection. 

The  pang  of  conscious  guilt  is  no  illusion.  It  is  a 
reasonable  sorrow,  and  the  import  of  it  is  not  exhausted 
in  that  first  interpretation.  It  means  not  merely  that 
we  ought  to  have  done  differently  in  that  particular 
case  which  awakened  this  consciousness,  and  in  which 


THE   OLD   DISCORD.  135 

perhaps,  being  such  as  we  were,  we  could  not  do  other 
than  we  did.  It  means  a  good  deal  more  than  this. 
It  signifies  a  general  deficiency  of  the  moral  nature ; 
a  want  of  that  moral  soundness,  which,  if  possessed, 
would  save  us  from  that  and  all  similar  transgressions. 
It  signifies  the  need  of  repentance ;  not  of  that  one 
transgression  only,  but  of  all  the  transgressions  with 
which  we  offend,  of  that  unsoundness  and  defect  of  our 
nature  whence  all  transgressions  flow,  of  that  general 
sin  of  which  all  particular  sins  are  but  the  symptoms ; 
as  coughs  and  catarrhs,  and  pains  of  the  head,  and  pains 
of  the  chest,  are  symptoms  of  disease,  which  is  nothing 
more  than  absence  of  health,  want  of  bodily  sound- 
ness. 

I  indicate  here  the  answer  to  the  question  concerning 
the  nature  of  sin,  —  a  question  wliich  the  Church,  or 
which  theologians  have  needlessly  mystified.  Christian 
dogmatists  have  represented  sin  as  a  positive  element  in 
human  nature.  In  addition  to  all  other  principles  and 
propensities,  they  suppose  a  distinct  ingredient  in  man 
which  they  call  sin,  —  a  positive  something  seated  in 
the  soul,  the  root  and  source  of  all  the  iniquities  of 
human  life.  This  view  I  believe  to  be  essentially  erro- 
neous. The  writers  of  the  New  Testament  sometimes 
speak  of  sin  as  if  it  were  a  positive,  antagonist  power 
in  man,  which  arrays  itself  against  God  and  his  right- 
eousness. It  must  be  remembered,  however,  that  the 
Scriptures  present  these  things  not  analytically,  but 
popularly,  —  in  language  derived  from  the  popular  con- 
ceptions of  the  time.  The  popular  conception  of  sin 
was  based  on  the  supposition  of  a  personal  evil  Power 
in  the  world ;   a  conscious,  malevolent,  almost  omnipo- 


134      EELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

tent  ao-ent,  n  Prince  of  Devils,  to  whom  all  the  sin  and 
all  the  evil  that  is  in  the  world  was  ascribed.  But,  inde- 
pendently of  this  hypothesis,  it  was  natural  enough, 
and  is  still  natural,  looking  at  the  consequences,  not  at 
the  essence  of  the  thing,  to  speak  of  a  negative  power 
in  terms  which  describe  a  positive  one.  We  speak  of 
darkness  and  cold,  and  even  death,  as  positive  agents  : 
although  the  former  is  simply  the  absence  of  light ;  the 
second,  of  heat;  the  third,  of  life.  Take  the  last  in- 
stance, —  death,  —  and  see  how  all  languages  and  liter- 
atures agree  In  representing  it  as  a  positive,  aggressive, 
even  conscious  and  voluntary  power.  Death  reigns, 
Death  works  and  walks  about,  and  lurks  and  lies  in 
wait,  and  shoots  arrows,  and  has  plans  and  propensi- 
ties and  predilections,  and  acts  the  part  of  a  voluntary, 
intelligent  being.  And  yet,  if  we  ask  ourselves  who 
or  what  it  is  that  does  all  this?  what  is  dr^ath?  the 
answer  is, — nothing.  Death  is  no  thing,  but  the 
absence  or  cessation  of  a  thing ;  it  is  pure  negation. 
It  Is  the  name  we  give  to  the  stoppage  of  the  breath 
and  the  other  vital  functions.  What  wonder,  then,  that 
sin,  the  absence  or  cessation  or  limitation  of  the  moral 
life,  should  be  described  in  positive  terms, — in  terms 
expressive  of  positive  agency  and  power? 

The  evil  of  sin,  the  deadly  mischief  and  misery  of 
of  it,  are  nowise  abated  or  disguised  by  this  view,  which 
regards  It  as  negation.  The  results  of  this  negation, 
the  effects  of  sin,  are  damnably  positive ;  and,  nat- 
urally enough,  they  induce  the  conception  of  a  posi- 
tive power  as  their  source  and  cause.  And  this  notion 
of  a  positive  element  of  sin  in  the  soul  may  seem  to 
derive  some  color  of  truth  from  certain  phenomena  of 


THE   OLD   DISCORD.  135 

human  consciousness.  The  resistance  we  sometimes 
encounter  in  obeying  the  moral  law,  the  opposition  we 
experience  in  our  efforts  to  perform  what  we  find  it  in 
our  conscience  to  do,  but  not  in  our  inclination,  might 
seem  to  imply  a  contrary  element,  an  antagonist  quality 
in  our  moral  composition,  beside  and  distinct  from  all 
the  other  elements  and  powers  of  the  soul,  to  which  we 
give  the  name  of  sin.  But,  if  we  analyze  the  facts  of 
this  experience,  we  shall  find  that  the  conflict  in  such 
cases  is  not  with  sin  as  a  separate  force  and  distinct 
constituent  of  our  nature,  but  a  conflict  of  principles 
equally  good  in  their  place,  and  equally  essential  to 
man's  well-being,  when  working  in  due  order  and  right 
proportion, — a  contest  between  the  moral  sense  and 
some  affection  or  propensity,  innocent  in  itself  but 
unduly  active  in  this  particular  case,  misdirected,  and 
intent  on  some  gratification  forbidden  by  the  moral  law. 
When  that  propensity  triumphs  in  the  conflict,  trans- 
gression ensues. 

Sin  is  the  transgression  of  the  law ;  not  a  distinct 
principle  within  us  which  breeds  transgression,  but  the 
act  of  transo-ression.  What  causes  transoression  is  not 
a  positive  but  a  negative  condition ;  it  is  not  any  one 
affection  of  the  soul,  in  itself  considered,  but  the  absence 
of  that  restraining  principle  and  power  without  which 
any  affection  of  the  soul  may  lead  to  sin.  All  human 
propensities,  powers,  and  affections  are  good  in  their 
origin  ;  sinful  only  in  their  perversion.  All  sin,  when 
traced  to  its  source,  Avill  be  found  to  consist  in  the  mis- 
direction of  principles  innocent  in  themselves,  and  not 
only  so,  but  essential  to  human  well-being.  What  one 
of  the  normal  affections  or  propensities  of  human  nature 


136       RELIGION  WITHIN"  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

is  there  which  man  could  spare  without  loss  to  society  ? 
What  one  of  our  passions  so  ill-favored  and  hard- 
named,  but  careful  scrutiny  shall  detect  in  it  some  vir- 
tue in  disguise  ?  Impartial  analysis  will  discover  self- 
respect  in  pride,  respect  for  others  in  vanity,  prudence 
in  avarice,  justice  in  revenge,  in  mad  ambition  some 
breathino^  after  excellence,  in  lust  some  color  of  love. 
All  our  vices  are  perversions  of  some  good.  Sensu- 
ality, intemperance,  selfishness,  —  what  are  they  but 
perversions  of  the  instinct  of  self-preservation?  Dis- 
honesty is  perverted  love  of  acquisition ;  mendacity, 
excess  of  caution,  or  perverted  self-defence ;  even  indo- 
lence, which  of  all  the  vices  it  is  hardest  to  connect 
with  any  good  principle  in  our  nature,  and  which 
Lavater  affirmed  to  be  the  original  sin,  is  perhaps  re- 
solvable into  love  of  freedom. 

Sin  is  nothing  special  within  the  soul,  but  one  of  its 
states.  Our  virtues  and  our  vices  are  products  of  one 
nature.  Vice  is  the  growth  of  the  wild  or  neglected 
soil,  and  virtue  the  fruit  of  right  culture  and  right  use. 
The  same  affection  whicli  grows  to  virtue  in  one  man 
may  turn  to  vice  in  another.  The  reason  of  the  differ- 
ence is  a  want  of  something  in  the  one  case  which  ex- 
ists in  the  other,  —  the  want  of  that  controlling  power 
which  limits  the  fleshly  and  selfish  propensities,  keeps 
the  passions  in  due  subjection,  prescribes  to  the  untamed 
forces  of  the  breast  their  mete  and  bound  within  wliich 
tliey  may  act  with  beneficent  effect,  and  impresses  on 
the  native  bullion  of  the  soul  the  form  and  stamp  of 
righteousness.  The  want  of  that  power  and  that  right- 
eousness is  sin,  or  the  cause  of  sin ;  which,  according- 
ly, is  shown  to  be  a  negative,  not  a  positive  state. 


THE    OLD    DISCORD.  137 

If  we  investigate  the  nature  of  that  controlling  power 
which  is  active  in  some  men  and  wanting  in  others,  we 
shall  see  that  it  cannot,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  be 
any  thing  foreign  from  the  soul  itself,  however  quick- 
ened by  impulses  from  without,  and  aid  from  above. 
To  suppose  this  would  be  to  make  righteousness  exter- 
nal and  accidental.  This  power  is  nothing  imported 
into  us  from  abroad,  but  something  inherent,  implanted 
in  all  men  ;  patent  in  some,  and  latent  in  others  ;  here 
born  into  active  virtue,  a  beneficent  agent,  possessing 
the  will  and  shaping  the  act;  there,  unquickened,  a 
torpid  germ  without  motion  or  life.  In  its  active 
state,  on  the  human  side,  it  is  the  will  self-determined 
to  good ;  on  the  superhuman  or  objective  side,  it  is 
God's  determining  grace  in  the  soul. 

The  good  principle  in  man,  tlie  power  which  subjects 
the  appetites  and  passions,  and  turns  them  into  virtues, 
the  fountain  of  the  moral  and  spiritual  life,  is  none 
other  than  the  Spirit  of  God  in  the  soul,  uplifting  and 
consecrating  its  affections,  directing  and  blessing  its 
deeds.  And  this  spirit  is  nothing  imported,  but  native 
in  man.  For  our  spirits  are  God's  spirit,  one  light  in 
many  lamps,  one  power  in  many  agents,  one  treasure 
in  many  vessels.  The  dawn  of  that  spirit  in  human  life 
is  a  moral  genesis  resembling  the  material  of  Mo- 
saic tradition.  The  natural  man  is  a  chaos  of  wild, 
waste  powers  and  unorganized  capacities  ;  a  world 
without  form,  and  void.  The  Spirit  of  God  broods  over 
this  deep;  piercing  its  discord,  resolving  its  confusion, 
binding  its  wild  forces,  commanding  light  to  ahine  out 
of  darkness,  adjusting,  reconciling,  assigning  to  each 
element  its  proper  place  and  function,  until  the  waste 


138      RELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

chaos  becomes  a  peaceful  and  happy  world.  In  this 
process  there  is  nothing  added,  and  nothing  taken  away  ; 
the  process  but  substitutes  organization  for  disorder, 
peace  for  discord,  measure  for  excess. 

This  view  of  sin,  as  negative  not  positive,  not  a  prin- 
ciple but  the  want  of  one,  is  charged  with  an  import  in 
which  the  whole  scheme  of  religion  is  concerned.  If 
sin  were  something  positive,  lodged  in  the  soul,  born 
with  us  at  our  birth,  an  original  endowment,  part  and 
parcel  of  our  nature,  then  would  God  be  the  author 
of  sin,  not  indirectly,  in  the  sense  of  permitting,  but 
directly  and  solely.  This  doctrine  either  charges  infinite 
Goodness  with  what  is  wholly  and  purely  evil,  or  else 
it  changes  the  nature  of  sin ;  which,  being  in  that  case 
the  creature  of  God,  must  be  right  and  good,  not  a 
transgression  of  the  law,  but  the  law  itself,  divinely 
written  on  the  heart.  The  existence  of  moral  evil  is,  in 
any  view,  a  perplexing  problem.  That  view  of  it  is 
most  rational  and  welcome  which  is  most  consistent  with 
the  moral  attributes  of  God ;  and  that  is  the  view,  that 
God  has  implanted  no  propensity  in  man  which  is  evil 
in  itself,  and  which  needs  to  be  extinguished  before  man 
can  accomplish  his  moral  destination ;  but  that  every 
property  with  which  he  has  endowed  us  is  good  in  itself, 
and  only  by  perversion  and  excess,  in  the  absence  of  a 
moral  and  controlling  power,  productive  of  evil. 

The  view  is  practically  important  as  indicating  the 
method  and  source  of  moral  regeneration.  If  sin  is 
not  a  property  but  a  want,  not  a  positive  power  but  the 
absence  of  good,  it  follows  that  the  way  to  deal  with  it 
is  to  educate  the  latent  g-ood  until  it  o-ains  the  ascen- 
dency  in  us,  and  becomes  the  dominant  power  in  our 


THE    OLD   DISCORD.  139 

life.  The  problem  of  reform  consists  not  so  much  in 
struo-rrlinfr  with  an  inward,  secret  foe,  as  in  cultivat- 
ing  and  establishing  an  inward  counsellor,  protector, 
friend.     Strun^^les  there  will  be  :  no  character  was  ever 

CO  r 

matured  without  them.  But  they  are  consequences,  not 
means ;  they  are  the  wreck  and  breaking-up  of  the 
past,  not  the  source  of  the  future ;  as  the  pangs  of 
birth  and  of  death  belong  to  the  old  life  which  is  pass- 
ing;, and  not  to  the  new  that  is  comino;.  Observe  how 
nature  heals  and  corrects  the  evil  in  her  kinds  by 
evolving  some  opposite  good.  The  diseases  of  the 
body  are  cured  by  the  energy  of  the  principle  of  life, — 
the  increased  action  of  the  sound  parts  overcoming  the 
unsound.  And  moral  diseases  are  cured  by  evolving 
and  establishing  a  principle  of  life,  which  shall  purge 
away  the  excesses  of  passion,  and  harmonize  the  forces 
of  the  soul. 

The  main  principle  of  life  to  the  moral  nature  is 
faith  :  religion  is  the  complement  of  all  morality.  With- 
out a  God,  there  can  be  no  righteousness,  because  no 
supreme  Right,  —  no  standard  and  guaranty  of  moral 
truth.  And  if  God  is,  then  worship  is  the  supreme 
ethic,  and  virtue  true  worship.  Are  we  seeking  deliv- 
erance from  the  yoke  of  the  ever-besetting  sin?  The 
way  is  not  to  chafe  against  it  with  frantic  effort,  wast- 

inGf  time  and  wastino-  heart  in  a  vain  and  endless  con- 
es o 

flict ;  but  to  turn  to  the  infinite  Good,  whose  holy 
idea  is  never  far,  but  greets  tlie  mind  the  moment  it 
looks  up,  and  turns  away  from  self  and  sense.  Rally 
your  faith  in  all  the  ideals ;  "  rally  the  good  in  the 
depths  of  thyself."  Will  to  believe  in  what  is  highest 
and  best ;    choose  to  walk  in  the  light  of  those  ideas 


140      REUGIOX  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

which  the  wisest  of  men  have  proved  with  their  lives, 
and  the  best  have  sealed  with  their  blood.  Let  the 
soul  receive  freely  into  her  dark  mansion  the  sunshine 
of  the  Spirit ;  and  sin,  which  is  nothingness  and  shad- 
ow, shall  flee  awaj. 

Theolo2:ians  w^ould  have  us  dwell  in  the  consciousness 
of  sin :  they  measure  piety  by  self-reproach.  They 
would  make  the  impulsive  utterance  of  St.  Paul  a  rule 
of  conscience  for  all  men,  and  have  each  one  think  him- 
self the  chief  of  sinners.  This  is  one  of  the  enormities 
of  false  religion,  and  involves  a  principle  as  fatal  to  the 
health  of  the  soul  as  the  opposite  extreme  of  moral 
indifference.  The  sense  of  sin  is  a  necessary  crisis  in 
the  moral  education  of  most  men  ;  but,  the  perpetuation 
of  that  crisis  is  a  state  of  arrested  development  w^hich 
plainly  contradicts  the  divine  order.  It  makes  religion, 
instead  of  a  stimulus  and  an  inspiration,  a  burden  and 
a  curse.  It  is  a  cruel  act  of  relio'ionists  to  endeavor  to 
force  the  consciousness  of  sin  on  healthy,  unoflTending 
natures  ;  that  is,  in  eifect,  to  make  tliem  sinners.  No 
soul  so  pure  but  may  find  flaws  in  its  consciousness,  if 
put  upon  the  search.  The  ingenuity  of  self-torture,  when 
conscience  is  stretched  on  the  rack,  will  always  elicit  a 
confession  of  guilt.  One's  very  virtues  are  arrayed 
against  him  ;  what  was  fair  and  pure  is  turned  to  de- 
formity and  hideousness  by  this  cruel  exposure  in  this 
concave  mirror  of  a  morbid  self- consciousness.  St. 
Elizabeth,  the  sweetest  spirit  of  her  time,  was  spiritually 
murdered  by  her  confessor  ;  and  how  many  saints  have 
committed  spiritual  suicide,  —  by  a  misdirected  piety 
turning  the  sword  of  the  Spirit  against  themselves  ! 


THE  OLD  DISCORD.  141 

No  sin  which  this  process  detects  is  so  damning  as 
the  process  itself;  and  no  scepticism  can  be  more  fatal 
than  the  doubt  of  salvation  in  conscientious  and  reli- 
gious men.  No  soul  can  heartily  rejoice  in  God,  that 
abides  in  this  sickly  contemplation  of  self.  The  office 
of  religion  is,  not  to  drive  us  back  upon  ourselves  with 
anxious  self-criticism,  but  to  take  us  out  of  ourselves 
and  unite  us  to  the  Whole,  in  loving  self-abandonment. 
A  man  must  take  himself  for  better  or  worse,  and  for- 
get himself,  if  possible :  so  shall  he  soonest  arrive  at 
the  beatific  vision. 


VIII. 
THE    OLD    FEAR. 


VIII. 
THE    OLD    FEAR, 


"  Tolle  istam  pompam  sub  qua  lates  et  stultos  territas :  Mors  es,  quam 
nuper  serrus  meus,  quam  ancilla  contempsit."  —  Seneca. 


In  every  life  there  are  two  points  of  paramount  inter- 
est,—  its  beginning,  and  its  close.  No  life  so  bari'^n, 
so  insignificant,  but  some  importance  will  attach  to  it  at 
these  extremities.  "  Twice  in  the  course  of  his  earthly 
career,"  says  Jean  Paul,  "the  humblest  mortal  becomes 
an  object  of  supreme  moment  to  those  about  him, — 
once,  when  he  arrives  on  this  earth ;  and,  again,  when 
he  quits  it." 

Birth  and  death !  the  risino;  and  the  settins:  of  a  hu- 
man  soul, — alike  in  this,  that,  of  all  the  events  of  man's 
life,  they  alone  are  universal,  how  unlike  in  the  feel- 
ings with  which  they  are  regarded  !  The  one  a  festival, 
a  gospel  of  glad  tidings  ;  the  other  a  message  of  grief 
and  gloom  in  the  circles  in  which  they  occur.  Why 
this  contrast?  Why  have  we  only  smiles  for  the  new- 
born, and  only  tears  for  the  dying?     Why  must  joy 

and  welcome  auspicate  our  coming,  and  only  tragedy 

10  [145] 


146       RELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

celebrate  our  exit  ?  If  either  is  fit  subject  of  congratu- 
lation, by  all  the  affirmations  of  religion  and  experience 
it  is  the  departing.  Setting  aside  the  belief  in  a  life  to 
come,  when  we  think  of  uncertainties  which  hang  over 
this,  the  certain  disappointments,  cares,  and  griefs  which 
await  the  most  favored,  the  anxiety  which  rocks  the 
cradle  of  childhood,  the  far  deeper  anxiety  which  tracks 
the  trial-steps  of  youth,  the  sore  conflicts  which  heave 
the  bosom  of  manhood,  the  infirmities  and  impotence 
of  age,  —  when  we  think  of  these,  it  should  seem  that 
solemn  forebodings  must  gather  round  the  entrance  of 
life,  and  a  shade  of  sadness  mingle  with  the  welcome 
which  ushers  in  the  new-born  on  this  earthly  shore  ;  and 
that  congratulations  belong  more  fitly  to  those  who  are 
about  to  lay  down  the  burden  of  life  and  to  be  deliv- 
ered from  the  evil  that  is  in  the  world.  It  was  some 
such  feeling  as  this  which  suggested  the  bitter  saying, 
"  It  is  better  to  walk  than  to  run ;  it  is  better  to  lie 
down  than  to  walk,  better  to  sleep  than  to  lie  down, 
better  to  die  than  to  sleep."  It  was  this  that  suggested 
to  the  dreamy  Hindoo  his  doctrine  of  despair,  which 
makes  annihilation  the  supreme  good. 

As  a  practical  principle,  we  feel  the  falsity  of  this 
view  of  life,  since  the  true  philosophy  of  life  finds  its  use 
to  consist,  not  in  profit  to  ourselves,  but  in  service  to 
others  ;  not  in  comforts  enjoyed,  but  in  work  performed. 
But,  viewed  as  a  question  of  selfish  advantage,  one 
would  say,  with  Pliny,  that  the  best  gift  of  fortune  is  an 
early  death !  And  if  to  all  this  we  add  the  belief  in 
immortality ;  if  we  think  that  the  soul  which  sets  on 
this  world  is  risincr  at  the  same  moment  on  some  other 
sphere  ;  if  we  think  that  its  life  is  progressive,  that  new 


THE  OLD  FEAR.  147 

conditions  will  supply  new  forces,  and  open  new  and 
richer  fountains  of  being  and  of  action, — then,  cer- 
tainly, death,  in  itself  considered,  is  a  more  legitimate 
cause  for  rejoicing  than  birth ;  a  happier  event  to  the 
individual  who  goes  hence  ;  a  worthier  occasion  for  con- 
gratulation to  those  who  remain. 

But  the  instinct  of  life  is  deeper  than  all  our  philoso- 
phy, and  stronger  than  most  men's  faith.  Argue  as 
we  will,  our  nature  clings  to  this  familiar  world,  to 
earth  and  man,  to  the  cheerful  day,  and  shrinks  from 
the  private  pass,  and  the  nameless  future  to  which  it 
leads.  Death  is  reckoned  an  enemy  still,  after  so  many 
ages  of  mental  discipline.  It  is  the  last  enemy  that 
will  be  put  under.  The  ancient  Egyptians  are  said  to 
have  placed  a  larva,  by  way  of  iinemento  Ttiori,  at  their 
banquets.  A  larva  still,  at  the  feast  of  life,  is,  to  most 
mortals,  the  thought  of  death.  "The  heaviest  stone 
which  melancholy  can  throw  at  a  man,"  says  Sir 
Thomas  Browne,  "is  to  tell  him  that  he  must  die." 
No  religion  has  yet  been  able  to  eradicate  this  tradi- 
tional dread.  Nay,  religion  itself  has  enhanced  the 
terror  by  representing  death  as  the  fruit  of  sin.  Milton, 
who  embodies  the  popular  conception  in  his  immortal 
epic,  finds  its  origin  in  Hell.  There  the  word  was  first 
uttered,  which  when  uttered, 

"  Hell  trembled  at  the  hideous  name,  and  sighed 
From  all  her  caves,  and  back  resounded  Death/* 

And  not  only  is  death,  in  the  popular  conception,  the 
penalty  of  sin,  but  it  introduces  the  sinner  to  new  and 
direr  penalties  and  woes.  To  the  "  natural  man,"  before 
religion  had  made  him  a  coward,  to  die  was  to  sleep,  — 


148      RELIGION  ■WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

"  No  more,  and  by  a  sleep  to  .  ,  .  end 
The  heart-ache." 

But  religion  suggested  that  "  to  sleep  "  was  "  percnance 
to  dream,"  and  scared  him  with  thinking  "in  that  sleep 
of  death  what  dreams  may  come." 

Paul  boasted,  in  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era, 
that  Christ  had  given  his  followers  the  victory  over  the 
grave.  The  victory  is  not  so  apparent  as  it  might  be. 
It  is  doubtful  if  Christians  have  made  any  great  advance 
on  the  ancients  in  their  feelinsr  about  death.  It  is 
doubtful  if  they  manifest  even  so  much  of  equanimity 
in  this  respect  as  the  stoics  of  Greece  and  Kome.* 
The  larva  still  frowns  at  the  feast ;  an  image  of  terror 
and  gloom  is  the  thousrht  of  death  to  most  mortals. 

The  terror  and  the  gloom  exist  only  in  our  imagina- 
tion :  we  shut  out  the  light,  and  see  spectres  in  the 
dark.  A  fixed  look  dispels  apparitions :  let  us  look 
steadfastly  in  the  face  of  this  larva,  holding  up  to  it 
the  lights  of  reason  and  of  faith,  till  we  see  it  to  be  a 
phantom  of  the  brain. 

Think  of  death  not  as  inevitable  merely,  but  as  some- 
thing divine ;  a  process  of  the  universal  Love,  a  mo- 
ment in  the  universal  life.  Here  is  nothing  monstrous 
or  out  of  the  way ;  no  frightful  anomaly,  no  dispensa- 
tion of  wrath  ;  but  something  of  a  piece  with  the  setting 
sun  and  the  waning  moon  and  the  falling  leaf,  —  a  part 
of  the  great  order,  a  necessary  link  in  the  universal 
chain  which  binds  all  being  to  the  throne  of  God.  A 
true  religion  will  adjust  itself  with  it,  —  will  look  upon 


*  The  Romanij  celebrated  the  death-day  of  their  heroes  as  we  dc  their 
birth-day ;  and  they  called  the  death-day  the  dies  natalis. 


THE    OLD   FEAR.  149 

it  as  we  do  upon  the  parting  day  and  the  dying  year, 
with  minds  sobered  and  thoughtful  indeed ;  for  all 
changes  and  all  endings  are  sad,  but  not  with  horror 
and  dread.  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  who  embraced  all 
nature,  brute  and  plant  as  well  as  man,  with  affectionate 
sympathy,  included  death  also,  as  a  part  of  nature,  in 
his  infinite  good-will.  "Welcome,  sister  Death,"  he 
said,  as  he  felt  his  end  draw  near. 

Death  is  natural :  let  us  hold  by  that.  The  nearer 
we  are  to  nature,  the  more  fitting  and  beautiful  and 
welcome  it  will  seem.  In  a  primitive  state,  it  has  not, 
so  far  as  we  can  judge,  the  terrible  aspect  which  it 
wears  in  an  artificial  one.  The  notion  that  death  is  the 
penalty  of  sin  could  not  have  originated,  I  think,  in  a 
primitive  age.  The  patriarchs  knew  nothing  of  it. 
Death  to  them  was  natural  and  right.  The  terms  in 
which  they  speak  of  it  express  their  entire  consent. 
They  call  it  a  falling  asleep,  —  the  being  gathered  to 
one's  fathers. 

What  is  it  that  makes  death  terrible  ?  The  pain  of 
parting  with  goods  and  satisfactions ;  with  all  that  we 
have  learned  to  love  and  enjoy  in  this  mortal  world; 
with  the  dear  familiar  uses  of  life.  "  O  death !  how 
bitter  is  the  thou2:ht  of  thee  to  him  that  liveth  at  ease 
in  his  possessions,  to  him  that  hath  prosperity  in  all 
thinofs  ! "  Death  has  no  terrors  for  the  wretched  and 
forlorn ;  for  those  who  have  already  died  to  all  that 
makes  life  a  blessing.  "Death,"  says  Lord  Bacon, 
"arrives  graciously  to  such  as  sit  in  darkness,  or  lie 
heavily  burdened  with  grief  and  irons ;  to  despairful 
widows,  pensive  prisoners,  and  deposed  kings ;  to 
those  whose  fortune  runs  back,  whose  spirits  mutiny. 


150      RELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF    THEISM. 

Unto  such  death  is  a  redeemer,  and  the  grave  a  place 
of  retiredness  and  rest.  These  wait  upon  the  shore  of 
death,  and  waft  unto  him  to  draw  near,  wishing  above 
all  others  to  see  his  star." 

If,  then,  the  delights  of  the  world  throw  so  dense  a 
shadow  on  the  grave ;  if  goods  and  pleasures  make 
death  appalling ;  what  remedy  for  such  engorgement 
but  renunciation?  Not  disuse  of  the  thing  enjoyed,  if 
innocent,  but  moderation  of  the  pleasure  we  take  in  it ; 
the  habit  of  regarding  it  as  foreign,  extrinsic,  transient ; 
not  as  the  substance  and  life  of  our  life.  Medical  art 
has  invented  a  way  to  mitigate  the  worst  diseases  of 
flesh,  by  forestalling  their  action,  by  adopting  them  in 
the  flesh,  by  inoculation.  Let  religion  apply  the 
same  therapeutic.  The  cure  for  death  is  to  inoculate 
ourselves  with  it,  —  to  accept  it  in  our  meditations. 
When  life  is  too  sweet  to  be  resigned  without  a  pang, 
when  we  feel  its  satisfactions  to  be  all-sufficing,  then 
it  is  time* to  die  to  the  world  in  thought  and  purpose 
and  affection ;  to  disenofaoe  the  fond  heart  from  the 
warm  embraces  of  fortune  ;  to  untwist  the  golden  links 
of  pleasure,  and  teach  the  weaned  spirit  to  stand  alone. 

Parting  with  beloved  friends  is  another  bitter  drop 
in  the  cup  of  death.  Bitter  and  sad  are  earthly  part- 
insfs  ;  but  those  of  death  are  not  the  saddest.  We  lose 
our  beloved  none  the  less,  though  death  spare  them. 
The  friend  whom  we  grapple  to  our  hearts  to-day  will 
not  be  the  same  when  a  few  years  have  passed  over 
him  and  us,  and  we  shall  not  be  the  same  to  him.  We 
think  we  have  him  when  another  occupying  his  pre- 
dicaments comes  to  our  side,  and  converses  with  us  as 
he  was  wont.     The  dear  illusion  satisfies  us,  until  some 


THE   OLD  FEAR.  151 

reflective  hour  or  some  accident  discovers  our  loss. 
In  this  age  of  photography,  we  are  easily  overtaken 
with  such  disenchantments,  as  we  place  side  by  side 
the  impression  of  ten  years  since  and  that  of  to-day, 
and,  looking  on  that  picture  and  on  this,  perceive  that 
time  is  more  destructive  of  identity  than  death.  The 
departed  friend  had  left  undisturbed  an  image  which 
the  living  displaces. 

When  the  mother  closes  the  eyes  of  her  little  one, 
and  sees  the  turf  laid  upon  its  coffin  lid,  her  heart  is 
torn  with  anguish ;  she  thinks  it  the  crowning  grief  of 
her  life.  But  what  if  the  death-angel  had  spared  her 
darling  ;  can  she  retain  him  ?  Impossible  !  The  inevi- 
table years  will  steal  away  her  child  as  surely  as  any 
mortal  disease.  It  is  our  living  children  that  we  lose, 
not  the  dead.  Do  you  doat  on  the  infant  beauty  which 
you  fold  in  your  arms  ?  Say  farewell !  you  will  never 
see  it  again.  "Eyes,  look  your  last;  lips,  take  your  last 
embrace  !  "  it  is  going ;  it  is  gone.  Let  the  portrait  of 
your  boy  be  taken  at  the  height  of  childish  bloom,  and, 
if  you  and  he  shall  live  so  long,  look  at  it  thirty  years 
hence,  compare  it  with  what  he  shall  then  have  become, 
and  you  will  see  that  you  have  lost  your  child  as  truly, 
as  irrecoverably,  as  if  those  fair  locks  and  that  guiltless 
smile  had  been  consio:ned  to  the  OTOund.  It  is  strano;e 
to  think,  that  the  most  bronzed  and  hardened  face  that 
meets  us  in  our  daily  walks, — the  face  on  which  the 
world  and  sin  have  set  their  coarsest  and  most  forbiddins: 
stamp,  —  was  once  the  face  of  a  little  child,  over  which 
fond  parents  doated,  and  dreamed  their  dreams.  There 
are  bitterer  partings  than  death,  and  more  heartrending 
fai*evvells  than  those  which  we  breathe  over  the  grave. 


152       EELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

And  what  is  death  ?  For  those  who  reach  maturity, 
what  is  it  ?  Is  it  any  thing  more  than  the  consumma- 
tion of  a  process  which  begins  with  infancy,  and  con- 
tinues and  proceeds  from  day  to  day,  every  day  of  our 
lives  ?  We  die  daily.  That  is  something  more  than  a 
figure  of  speech :  it  is  literal  fact.  We  call  it  death 
when  the  breath  fails  and  the  heart  stops.  But  that  is 
only  the  last  in  a  series  of  acts,  each  one  of  which  is 
fatal.  Our  life  from  the  beginning  is  a  constant  de- 
scent into  death.  Why  should  we  concentrate  our 
regrets  on  the  last  step,  when  all  our  years  have  been 
travelling  the  same  way  ?  Are  the  last  sands  that  run 
through  the  glass  so  much  more  precious  than  all  the 
rest?  Are  these  all  diamond  sparks,  and  the  rest  all 
flint?  How  many  golden  days,  more  fruitful  and  blest 
than  we  are  likely  ever  to  know  again,  have  gone  by, 
and  no  obsequies  were  celebrated,  and  no  requiem  sung  ! 
The  death  of  our  youth  is  so  much  sadder  and  more 
appalling  than  any  other  death  ;  but  no  tear  was  shed , 
and  no  funeral  prayer  offered,  and  our  step  never  fal- 
tered, and  our  heart  never  quailed,  when  we  crossed 
that  fatal  bourne.  And  why?  Because  the  passage 
was  gradual?  It  is  then  merely  a  question  of  time, 
of  slow  or  sudden,  of  early  or  late.  If  the  youth  of 
eighteen  were  to  be  changed  by  a  stroke  into  an  elder 
of  eighty,  human  nature  could  not  endure  the  meta- 
morphosis. How  much  more  appalling  it  would  seem 
than  sudden  death !  But  we  see  nothing  terrible  in  it 
when  the  change  proceeds  in  the  ordinary  way,  step  by 
step,  day  by  day.  We  are  not  sensible  of  death  when 
our  youth  dies  in  us,  although  that  death  in  reality  is 
so  much  harder  and  sadder  than  the  dissolution  of  the 
earthly  framjc 


THE   OLD  FEAR.  153 

We  die  daily :  with  each  new  section  of  our  mortal 
history  we  give  up  something  that  belonged  to  the 
section  preceding.  We  are  losing  continually  a  por- 
tion of  our  being ;  we  suffer  ceaseless  dissolutions. 
Let  the  mature  man  compare  himself  with  the  budding 
boy,  and  see  how  much  of  death  he  has  already  experi- 
enced. How  much  of  what  he  was  has  perished  in 
him  and  from  him,  never  to  be  restored !  Where 
now  is  the  careless  mirth  that  lit  up  the  boyish  eye? 
where  the  sunny  peace  or  gushing  joy  of  the  boyish 
breast?  Where  tlie  boundless  expectation,  the  implicit 
faith,  the  indomitable  hope,  the  buoyant  nature,  the 
unshadowed  soul,  the  exuberant  life?  Is  not  the  loss 
of  these  as  truly  death  as  the  putting-off  of  the  fleshly 
tabernacle  ?  Is  it  not  as  much  dying  to  lose  the  splen- 
dor and  joy  of  our  young  years,  as  it  is  to  be  divested 
of  our  mortality?  The  veteran,  however  blest  with 
"that  which  should  accompany  old  age,"  looks  back 
npon  his  youth  as  a  Paradise  lost,  never  in  this  world 
to  be  regained. 

"  O  man!  that  from  thy  fair  and  shining  youth 
Age  might  but  take  the  things  youth  needed  not ! " 

This  ceaseless  death  would  make  existence  intolera- 
ble, were  it  not  balanced  and  compensated  by  ceaseless 
new  births.  The  true  soul  gains  as  fast,  or  faster  than 
it  loses.  Life  is  constant  acquisition  as  well  as  constant 
waste ;  a  series  of  resurrections  as  well  as  deaths.  If 
we  die  daily,  we  are  also  renewed  day  by  day.  If  we 
lose  in  buoyancy,  we  gain  in  earnestness ;  if  we  lose 
in  imagination,  we  gain  in  experience;  if  we  lose  in 
freshness,  we  gain  in  weight ;  if  we  lose  in  fervor,  we 
gain  in  wisdom ;   if  we  lose  in  enjoyment,  it  is  to  be 


154      RELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

hoped  we  gain  In  patience.  If  we  gradually  die  to  the 
world,  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  we  more  and  more  live 
unto  God. 

Now,  applying  this  principle  to  the  final  event  which 
we  call  death  in  the  usual  and  literal  sense ;  if  our  life 
has  been  what  it  should  be,  —  a  constant  effort  for 
good  and  constant  progress  ;  —  It  will  be  found  at  last 
that  we  have  accumulated  more  than  we  have  spent ; 
that,  though  flesh  and  heart  fail  us,  the  spiritual  assets 
exceed  the  temporal  failures.  There  is  a  feeling,  that, 
however  the  body  may  perish,  life  preponderates  over 
death  in  our  system ;  that  the  bursting  of  the  mortal 
hull  will  be  the  diseno^aorino:  of  a  force  which  must  still 
persist  in  its  irrepressible  career. 

There  is  a  dread  of  death  independent  af  any  views 
of  the  future  destiny,  —  a  dread  of  it  as  something  un- 
known, and  differing  in  kind  from  all  that  is  known;  a 
leap  in  the  dark,  a  plunge  into  a  new  element,  a  sud- 
den transition  into  something  wide  of  all  past  experi- 
ence. If  death  were  this,  —  a  transition  from  one  state 
to  an  entirely  different  state, — it  would  destroy  our 
identity,  and  would  therefore  be  something  with  which, 
as  conscious  beings,  we  could  have  no  concern.  There 
can  be  no  such  leap,  no  abrupt  transition  in  our  mental 
life.  Our  mental  life  is  a  linked  succession,  a  continu- 
ous series  of  consecutive  states,  each  one  of  which  is 
necessarily  connected  with  the  one  which  preceded  it. 
Every  moment  of  our  being  is  the  product  of  the  previ- 
ous moment,  and  the  parent  of  the  next.  Death,  like 
every  other  experience,  must  run  along  this  line  of 
successive    moments  ;    that    is,    it    must    be    gradual. 


THE   OLD  FEAR.  155 

However  sudden  to  the  senses,  as  a  mental  experience 
it  must  be  gradual ;  else  it  would  be  annihilation.  As 
a  mental  process,  it  is  probably  so  gradual  that  the 
subject  of  it  can  never  know  at  what  precise  moment 
he  ceases  to  exist  for  this  world  and  enters  on  another. 
We  experience  daily  something  of  this  sort,  something 
which  is  probably  the  same  as  death  to  individual  con- 
sciousness, when  w^e  lay  ourselves  down  to  our  nightly 
rest.  No  man  can  tell  the  precise  moment  when  his 
slumbers  begin ;  when  he  passes  from  a  conscious  to  an 
unconscious  state.  Neither  can  any  man  determine  the 
precise  moment  of  his  waking.  And  death  is  a  waking 
too,  as  well  as  a  falling  asleep,  —  a  waking,  it  may  be, 
after  some  brief  moments  of  self- forgetting ;  it  may 
be  after  countless  millions  of  years.  But  of  this  we 
may  be  sure,  that  whether  the  interval  of  slumber  be 
long  or  short,  — whether  it  be  for  seconds  or  for  aions, 
the  waking,  as  a  mental  experience,  will  be  gradual. 
By  degrees  we  lose  our  conscious  self;  by  degrees  we 
find  it  again. 

I  brought  together,  at  the  beginning  of  this  chapter, 
the  two  extremes  of  birth  and  death.  These  are  but 
different  aspects  of  one  fact.  Death  is  birth.  The 
birth  into  this  life  was  the  death  of  the  embryo  life 
which  preceded,  and  the  death  of  this  will  be  birth  into 
some  new  mode  of  being.  And  as  at  our  birth  into  this 
world  we  came  slowly  and  gradually  into  conscious 
existence  and  the  knowledge  of  our  condition  ;  so,  in  the 
life  into  which  we  next  pass,  our  knowledge  of  that  life, 
it  may  be  presumed,  will  be  a  thing  of  gradual  growth. 
Little  by  little,  we  shall  find  ourselves,  and  our  new 
position  in  the  universe.     And  as  in  this  life  we  woke 


156       RELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

into  consciousness  in  the  arms  of  loving  friends,  so,  we 
may  venture  to  hope,  our  next  waking  will  be  bosomed 
by  that  eternal  Love  which  provided  this  shelter  for  us 
here. 


SUPPLEMENT. 

CONVERSE   WITH   THE   DYING. 

Who  would  not  wish,  if  possible,  to  smooth  their  pas- 
sage through  the  Valley,  who  are  passing  before  our 
eyes  ?  —  to  shed  that  comfort  on  their  dying  bed  which 
we  covet  for  our  own  ? 

An  easy  death  depends  in  part  on  physical  condi- 
tions which  we  cannot  control,  but  in  part  also  on 
mental  conditions  which  we  may  control,  or  at  least 
assist.  It  depends  on  the  conduct,  the  converse,  the 
very  tones  of  surrounding  friends.  If  these  are  sad  and 
despondent,  their  sadness  and  gloom  will  tell  on  the 
dying,  in  that  enfeebled  state  of  mind  when  the  feelings 
and  opinions  of  others  exert  a  disproportionate  influence, 
and  when  it  takes  so  little  to  bring  a  shadow  upon  the 
soul.  Let  the  wants  and  necessities  of  the  death-bed  — 
I  mean  its  mental  wants  and  necessities  —  be  studied  by 
the  living ;  for  who  knows  how  soon  he  may  be  called 
to  minister  to  those  requirements  in  person  ?  On  their 
careful  study  will  depend  the  success  of  our  ministry. 
This  is  a  case  in  which  reflection  is  a  better  guide  than 
instinct,  though  it  be  the  instinct  of  affection. 

Shall  those  who  are  wasting  away  with  a  lingering 
death,  be  informed  of  their  condition,  —  of  the  nature 


CONVERSE    WITH  THE   DYING.  157 

and  impending  issue  of  their  disease,  when  recovery  is 
seen  to  be  hopeless  ?  Assuredly,  let  them  be  informed 
of  it,  if  their  own  consciousness  has  not  anticipated 
such  communication,  while  yet  in  full  possession  of 
their  senses.  For  why  will  we  deal  deceitfully  with 
a  brother  or  sister  in  that  solemn  season  when  the 
false  shows  of  this  world  are  rapidly  passing  away, 
and  the  kingdom  of  eternal  verities  impends?  Let 
there  be  that  perfect  understanding  between  the  dying 
and  their  friends  on  this  point,  and  all  points,  without 
which  they  are  estranged,  and  can  have  no  frank  and 
hearty  communion.  But,  when  this  understanding  is 
established,  let  every  thing  about  the  chamber  of  death 
wear  a  cheerful  aspect.  Let  the  fading  eye  encounter 
nothing  sad  or  harrowing.  Let  there  be  smiles  and 
cheerful  converse,  if  nature  will  permit ;  and  let  those 
tears  and  pangs  which  cannot  be  controlled  be  con- 
cealed. Let  the  tones  which  fall  upon  the  ear  be  firm 
and  calm.  Let  no  heart-rending  sights  or  sounds  dis- 
turb the  tranquillity  of  the  closing  scene,  no  agonizing 
demonstrations  embitter  the  last  farewell.  In  the  place 
of  that  stillness  which  the  spirit  craves  when  about  to 
commit  itself  to  rest,  let  no  lamentations  make  harsh 
discord  in  the  ear,  nor  the  final  struggle  be  aggravated 
by  the  struggles  of  surrounding  friends.  What  the 
dying  want  is  quiet,  —  that  quiet  you  so  willingly  ac- 
cord to  them,  are  so  anxious  to  secure  to  them,  when 
they  close  their  eyes  for  temporary  slumber. 

As  to  ofiSces  of  religion,  and  the  character  those 
offices  should  assume  in  the  case  of  incurable  disease,  it 
seems  to  me  that  the  only  legitimate  function  of  religion 
in  such  cases  is  to  soothe  and  cheer,  to  meet  such  wants 


158       RELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

as  are  expressed  or  well  understood,  and  not  to  force 
the  consideration  of  questions,  which,  unless  they  have 
been  already  considered,  can  hardly  be  considered  with 
profit  then.  It  sometimes  happens,  that  well-inten- 
tioned but  misjudging  friends  of  a  different  faith  seek 
the  presence  of  the  dying,  in  order  to  draw  their  atten- 
tion to  points  of  sectarian  theology,  and  to  bring  about 
a  state  of  mind  which  they  suppose  to  be  an  essential 
condition  of  future  blessedness.  Let  such  visitations 
and  ministrations  by  all  means  be  excluded,  as  tending 
only  to  perplex  and  agitate  a  mind  too  enfeebled  for 
discussion  or  resistance,  with  no  likelihood  of  future 
and  final  gain.  For,  of  all  the  absurdities  engendered 
by  false  views  of  God  and  man,  there  is  none  which 
exceeds  the  absurdity  of  supposing  that  the  everlasting 
welfare  of  a  human  soul  can  depend  on  the  presence  of 
a  certain  idea  in  the  mind  a  few  moments  before  the 
pulsations  of  the  animal  frame  have  ceased.  The  fu- 
ture well-being,  so  far  as  it  depends  on  moral  condi- 
tions, must  be  the  fruit  of  a  life.  Where  the  life  has 
not  produced  this  fruit,  it  is  not  likely  to  spring  forth 
ripe  and  complete,  from  the  pressure  exerted  on  the 
mind  in  the  dying  hour.  No  doubt  the  character  may 
be  permanently  benefited  by  the  experiences  of  the 
death  -  bed ;  but  they  must  be  natural  experiences 
wrought  into  the  soul  by  the  Spirit  of  God  through 
the  proper  discipline  of  that  season,  and  not  forced 
experiences,  produced  by  efforts  from  without,  and  the 
importunity  of  dogmatic  presentations.  Let  religion 
offer  to  the  dying  such  consolations  and  hopes  as  it 
can,  consistently  with  its  own  convictions.  There  can 
hardly  be  a  case  in  which  religion  has  not  some  conso- 


CONVERSE    WITH   THE    DYING.  159 

lation  to  offer  to  the  mind  that  desires  it.  It  may  be 
said  there  is  danger  of  deceiving  with  a  false  hope. 
This  one  would  not  willingly  do.  Deception  is  bad, 
and  self-deception  is  bad,  at  all  times,  in  all  things. 
It  is  better  that  the  soul  should  have  sight  of  the  truth, 
the  exact  truth,  whether  bitter  or  sweet.  But  who  has 
the  truth?  Who  can  be  so  sure  of  it  as  to  know  with 
certainty  that  the  view  he  presents  will  exactly  convey 
it?  Our  duty  to  the  dying  is  to  give  them  all  the 
solace  and  cheer  we  can,  consistently  with  our  own 
expectations  and  beliefs,  by  every  argument  that  does 
not  belie  our  established  convictions  :  and  more  still,  by 
our  deportment  and  looks  and  tones,  to  make  death 
easy  to  the  dying ;  to  save  them  from  all  distress  which 
it  lies  in  our  power  to  avert ;  to  give  them  a  staff  and 
comfort,  and  words  of  cheer,  through  the  way  of  mys- 
tery, that  they  may  tread  it  with  victorious  step,  and 
a  joyful  presage  of  light,  and  a  freer  horizon  beyond. 


IX, 

THE    OLD    HOPE. 


IX. 
THE    OLD    HOPE. 


"  Oh  joy  that  in  our  embers 

Is  somethmg  that  doth  live !  "  —  Wordsworth. 

*'  At  nihilo  minus  sentimus  experimurque  nos  aetemos  esse."  —  Spinoza. 


Man  is  a  yonder-minded  being,  an  embodied  hereafter. 
There  are  faculties,  purposes,  aspirations  in  him  for 
which  this  life  affords  no  adequate  scope,  which  there- 
fore presage  a  life  to  come.  Their  import,  it  is  true, 
may  relate  to  the  species,  not  to  the  individual.  They 
may  be  but  intimations  of  the  higher  capabilities  of 
human  life,  and  a  better  future  for  man  on  this  earth ; 
as  certain  rudimental  organs  in  the  lower  orders  of  ani- 
mated nature  seem  to  be  prophecies  of  a  higher  organ- 
ism, which  find  their  fulfilment  in  man.  Yet,  even  so, 
they  have  a  savor  of  immortality.  The  strongest  proof 
of  individual  immortality  is  the  fact  that  men  believe  in 
it.  The  ancient  and  wide-spread  faith  may  be  regarded 
as  a  pledge  from  the  Power  that  made  us,  not  indeed 
that  each  individual  soul  shall,  without  exception,  per- 
petuate a  conscious  identity,  but  that  immortality  is 
within  the  possibilities  and  scope  of  the  human  consti- 
tution. 

[1^3] 


164      RELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

The  analogies  of  nature,  so  often  insisted  on  in  this 
connection,  appear  to  me  not  to  possess  much  weight. 
The  old  and  ever-repeated  illustration  of  the  caterpillar 
and  the  butterfly  fails  in  one  or  two  essential  particu- 
lars. First,  The  caterpillar,  before  developing  into  the 
butterfly,  does  not  die,  in  any  such  sense  as  that  which 
we  intend  when  we  speak  of  the  death  of  man.  Sec- 
ondly, If  the  caterpillar  does  die  by  some  fatal  injury, 
or  if  such  injury  be  inflicted  on  the  grub,  no  butterfly 
succeeds.  And,  thirdly.  The  butterfly  is  not  immortal, 
but,  as  if  by  way  of  compensation  for  her  double  life, 
perishes  before  the  birth  of  her  offspring.  Nature,  so 
far  as  we  can  see,  is  not  concerned  to  perpetuate  the 
individual,  but  only  the  species.  I  am  not  aware  of 
any  fact  in  nature  which  favors  the  belief  in  individual 
immortality.  The  affirmative  voices  on  this  question 
are  not  to  be  collected  from  the  world  of  facts,  but 
from  that  of  ideas. 

Moreover,  the  question  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul 
must  not  be  confounded  with  that  of  the  immortality 
of  the  conscious  self.  Most  of  the  reasoning  on  the 
subject  applies  only  to  the  former ;  but  it  seems  to  as- 
sume the  identity  of  the  two.  The  immortality  of  the 
soul  being  granted,  it  would  still  be  a  question  whether 
the  soul  is  the  continent  and  carrier  of  the  conscious 
self,*   in  such  wise  that  the  perpetuation  of  the  one 


*  Perhaps  we  exaggerate  the  importance  of  this  one  aspect  of  the 
general  question.  There  may  be  as  much  of  egoism  as  of  reason  in  the  in- 
terest felt  in  the  continuity  of  the  conscious  self.  I  cannot  agree  with  those 
who  would  place  the  whole  emphasis  of  immortality  here,  and  who  think 
that  not  to  remember  the  I  of  the  present  life  is  not  to  live  at  all  hereafter; 
since,  then,  it  is  not  I  that  live,  but  another.    It  is  still  I  in  the  sense  most 


"*  THE   OLD   HOPE.  165 

necessarily  involves  the  continuity  of  the  other,  —  in- 
volves the  recollection  of  the  present  life.  Whether  I 
■ —  that  is,  this  soul  of  mine  —  shall  live  again,  and 
live  for  ever,  is  one  question ;  whether  I  shall  hereafter 
remember  my  present  self  is  another,  and,  it  seems  to 
me,  a  quite  secondary  one.  If  any  object,  that  not  to 
remember  the  present  self  is  not  to  remember  the  past 
at  all ;  that,  consequently,  it  is  annihilation  of  the  past, 
consequently,  destruction  of  identity,  consequently,  not 
so  much  immortality,  as  new  creation,  —  I  reply,  that 
memory  has  two  parts,  —  retention  and  association.  I 
can  suppose  that  the  ideas,  and  all  essential  knowledge 
acquired  in  the  present  life  may  be  retained,  while  the 
association  with  the  present  perishes.  Experience  is 
not  necessarily  lost  when  the  past  is  no  longer  recalled. 
Its  substance  may  still  exist  without  the  form  of  mem- 
ory. What  is  now  memory,  or  remembered  knowl- 
edge, may  hereafter  be  intuition. 

Leaving,  then,  the  uncertain  analogies  of  nature, 
and  taking  our  stand  in  the  world  of  ideas,  I  find  there 
the  idea  of  immortality ;  not  a  recent  speculation,  nor 
a  private  conceit,  but  ancient  and  universal  as  civilized 
man.  What  account  can  be  given  of  it?  Whence  its 
origin?  Shall  we  say  that  the  wish  is  father  to  the 
thought?  But  how  many  things  there  are  which  we 
desire,  which  all  men  desire,  with  no  accompanying 
belief  in  their  possibility.     I  find  no  explanation  of  the 


important  to  the  whole,  if  not  in  the  sense  most  important  to  self-love.  It 
is  still  the  same  soul  Avith  all  that  earthly  discipline  has  made  it;  and,  by 
that  discipline,  fitted  and  endoAved  for  its  new  career.  This  is  all  that  con- 
eerns  the  city  of  God.  The  question  of  conscious  identification  ("llle  ego 
qui  quondam  ")  is  a  private  affair,  important  only  to  self-love. 


166       RELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

fact  of  this  belief  so  satisfactory  as  the  supposition  of  a 
truth  on  which  it  rests,  and  an  understanding  between 
the  human  and  divine  spirit,  by  which  that  truth  is 
assured. 

And  I  find  in  this  idea  the  best  solution  of  the  moral 
problems  and  contradictions  of  human  life.  Of  these 
contradictions,  the  most  glaring,  perhaps,  is  the  incom- 
patibility of  the  claims  of  the  moral  law  with  the  in- 
stincts of  nature.  The  moral  law  announces  itself  in 
our  consciousness  as  the  hio-hest  law  of  our  beino-  as 
that  to  which  we  owe  supreme  allegiance,  —  the  "  cate- 
gorical imperative."  Deep  in  the  universal  soul  is  laid 
the  conviction  of  moral  obligation,  of  the  binding  ne- 
cessity of  right.  The  law  of  duty  is  unconditional :  it 
demands  unconditional  obedience.  It  requires  the  sac- 
rifice, not  only  of  present  ease,  but  of  life  itself,  when- 
ever they  stand  in  the  way  of  its  sacred  claims.  It 
requires  that  we  encounter  all  hazards,  and  count  not 
our  life  dear,  in  any  service  to  which  the  providence  of 
God  has  called  us.*  We  blame  the  man  who  abandons 
the  post  of  duty  from  a  cowardly  love  of  life ;  the 
physician  who  deserts  his  patients  attacked  with  infec- 
tious disease ;  the  soldier  who  perils  his  country's  cause 
through  fear.  But  why  do  we  blame  them  ?  Is  not 
life  the  supreme  end  to  which  every  thing  else  must  be 
sacrificed?  So  says  the  instinct  of  self-preservation. 
But  no  !  conscience  protests  against  this  view.  There 
is  something  higher  than  self-preservation:  duty  is 
more  sacred  than  life.  Then  what  a  contradiction  is 
man  !     What  opposite  laws  prevail  in  his  constitution  ? 

*  The  illustration  which  follows  is  from  Bretschneider. 


THE    OLD   HOPE.  167 

What  means  this  sense  of  obliijation  which  contradicts 
the  instincts  of  nature  ?  How  can  his  self  require  him 
to  expose  his  self  to  destruction?  Here  is  a  problem 
which  requires  immortality  for  its  solution.  Grant  an 
hereafter,  and  the  contradiction  becomes  intelli2:ible. 
It  is  not  our  very  and  whole  being  that  we  are  to  sacri- 
fice, but  only  tlie  earth-life,  brief  and  imperfect  at  best. 
The  law  of  duty  is  not  calculated  for  earthly  limita- 
tions. Its  scheme  is  irrespective  of  the  bounds  of 
time.  The  obedience  it  requires  supposes  an  immortal 
nature. 

For  not  only  must  that  obedience  be  unconditional : 
it  must  also  be  complete  and  entire.  A  voice  in  man, 
speaking  with  divine  authority,  bids  him  make  the  law 
of  duty  the  sole  and  uniform  law  of  his  life.  This  he 
can  never  succeed  in  doing;  for  he  carries  within  him, 
beside  the  law  of  right,  another  law,  —  the  law  of  self- 
ish appetite.  "  The  flesh  lusteth  against  the  spirit." 
He  who  is  most  intent  on  the  right  does  not  always 
perform  what  the  spirit  wills,  and  what  the  law  de- 
mands. This  conflict  between  flesh  and  spirit  ends 
never  while  flesh  endures.  No  man  becomes  in  this 
world  what  he  is  capable  of  being,  in  moral  purity  and 
strength.  The  virtue  that  is  in  him  is  not  brouo'ht  out 
in  mortal  action .  Will  it  never  appear  ?  Will  it  never 
become  fact?  Then  the  supreme  Wisdom  would  seem 
to  contradict  itself.  The  order  of  God  is  to  accom- 
plish great  ends  with  small  means  ;  but  here  the  ends 
are  little,  and  the  means  great.  What  wealth  of  faculty  ! 
What  paltry  attainments  !  The  only  solution  of  this 
inconsistency  is  the  supposition  of  another  term  and  a 
longer  date  for  the  moral   life,   and  perhaps   a  better 


168       RELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

temperature  of  the  spirit,  that  shall  perfect  the  fruit 
which  would  not  ripen  in  the  climate  of  this  world. 

Great  powers  and  small  performance ;  vast  schemes 
and  petty  results  ;  "  thoughts  that  wander  through  eter- 
nity," and  a  life  that 

"  can  little  more  supply 
Than  just  to  look  about  us  and  to  die  "I 

Will  any  philosophy  that  denies  immortality  satisfy  us 
with  its  reading  of  this  riddle  ?  It  is  true,  tliese  aspi- 
rations in  man  which  transcend  the  scale  of  earthly  life 
are  not  in  themselves  a  sufficient  proof  of  a  life  beyond. 
Still,  the  consciousness  of  an  unfulfilled  destiny,  which 
afflicts  alike  the  strongest  and  the  weakest,  in  view  of 
their  attainments  as  compared  with-  their  designs,  is 
hardly  reconcilable  with  earthly  limitations,  if  those 
limitations  represent  "  the  be-all  and  the  end-all "  of  the 
soul.  "Life's  short  sum,"  the  poet  warns  us,  "forbids 
the  undertaking  of  a  long  hope."  But  who  was  ever 
persuaded  to  abridge  his  hope  in  accommodation  to  the 
narrow  span  ?  "  Life  is  short  and  art  is  long,"  said 
the  wise  physician.  Who  was  ever  deterred  from  art 
by  the  known  disproportion?  And  who  ever  lived  to 
accomplish  his  uttermost  aim?  What  career  so  com- 
plete as  to  comprehend  all  that  is  wanted  of  this  world  ? 
We  retire  with  an  imperfect  victory  from  the  battle  of 
life.  The  campaign  is  not  finished  when  we  strike 
tents.  We  have  devised  schemes  of  gain  or  ambition 
which  are  still  in  full  operation.  The  scholar  has  un- 
solved problems  at  which  he  is  laboring.  The  philoso- 
pher is  summoned  in  the  midst  of  experiments  he 
cannot  stay  to  complete.  The  philanthropist  is  over- 
taken in  projects  of  reform  that  are  to  add  new  value 


THE    OLD   HOPE.  169 

to  huniim  life.     We  all  stop  short  of  the  goal  which 
entertained  our  livelong  hope. 

In  this  abrupt  termination  of  the  present  existence, 
there  lies  an  intimation  of  another  state  and  a  further 
existence  for  the  scheming  soul,  whose  schemes  the 
present  has  failed  to  realize.  I  do  not  say  proof;  for 
it  does  not  amount  to  that.  The  proof  of  immortality 
is  faith  in  it.  Alas  for  man,  if  his  faith  is  at  the  mercy 
of  his  wit !  Yet  it  is  well  to  listen  to  these  intima- 
tions :  they  help  to  illustrate  what  they  cannot  estab- 
lish. It  is  a  w^ell-known  fact  of  familiar  experience, 
that  no  dream  is  ever  finished.  They  all  break  off  in 
the  midst ;  they  stop  short  on  the  eve  of  some  further 
development.  The  reason  is,  that  the  law  by  which 
the  dream  proceeds  and  unfolds  itself  does  not  reside  in 
the  dream  itself,  but  in  a  life  behind  the  dream-life,  and 
including  that  as  one  of  its  states  or  phenomena.  If 
the  dream  subsisted  by  itself,  and  unfolded  itself  by  a 
law  of  its  own,  it  would  continue  to  unfold  until  it 
reached  its  natural  termination  ;  and  every  dream  would 
then  be  complete  in  itself,  —  a  perfect  whole.  But  be- 
ing what  it  is,  —  a  mere  dependency  of  the  waking  life, 
and  attached  by  a  thread  to  the  actual  world,  —  the 
sliofhtest  disturbance  in  that  is  sufficient  to  break  it 
up.  So  we  may  suppose,  so  indeed  we  know,  that 
the  law  of  our  waking  life  —  the  law  by  which  we  live 
in  the  actual  world  —  has  its  root  in  a  life  behind  that. 
Our  scheming  and  our  action  are  projected  on  a  scale 
of  the  soul ;  our  existence  as  children  of  earth  is  pro- 
jected on  a  scale  of  physical  laws.  The  two  scales  do 
not  (ioincide.  The  scale  of  earthly  existence  is  a  small 
frame  applied  to  a  larger  plan.     It  bounds  that  plan 


170       RELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

for  this  world:  does  it  bound  it  for  ever?  Does  it 
bound  the  planning  and  producing  soul?  I  see  no 
reason  to  suppose  that  it  does.  What  our  dreams  are 
to  our  waking  existence,  that  our  waking  existence 
may  be  to  an  inner  and  larger  life  of  the  soul ;  and 
what  we  call  the  actual  world  —  that  is,  our  experience 
of  it  —  may  be  but  a  dream  of  this  inner  life  pro- 
jected on  a  scale  of  physical  laws,  and  bounded  by 
them,  as  our  nightly  dream  is  bounded  by  them  in  its 
narrower  limits ;  and  what  we  call  death  may  be  but 
the  breaking  up  of  this  more  protracted  dream,  at  the 
point  where  the  scale  of  physical  laws  intersects  the  in- 
ner life ;  consequently  a  waking-up  of  the  soul  to  a 
more  intense  and  expanded  consciousness,  —  a  con- 
sciousness which  shall  bear  the  same  proportion  to  this 
present  state  that  the  present  does  to  the  nightly  dream. 
What  a  miracle  it  is,  for  all  our  familiarity  with  it, 
when  we  wake  in  the  morning,  new-born,  into  the 
great,  wide  world  of  day,  after  being  shut  up  for  some 
hours  in  the  narrow  confinement  of  the  world  of  sleep  ! 
How  little  and  nugatory  seems  to  us  then  our  dream, 
if  remembered  at  all !  Only  when,  in  that  dream  which 
we  had,  some  fierce  passion  was  called  into  play,  or 
some  terrible  calamity  pursued  us,  do  we  dwell  upon  it 
still,  for  a  while,  in  the  growing  dawn,  until  the  impor- 
tunate realities  of  waking  existence  chase  its  image 
from  the  soul.  I  can  imagine  a  waking  consequent  on 
death,  or  coincident  with  it,  which  shall  give  us  a  con- 
sciousness by  so  much  the  more  vivid,  a  morning  by  so 
much  the  more  resplendent,  a  world  by  so  much  the 
larger  and  more  glorious,  as  our  conceptions  and  the 
possibilities  of  being  transcend  the  actual  experience 


THE    OLD   HOPE.  171 

of  life.  And  perhaps  every  future  life  of  the  soul  may 
be  as  a  dream  to  that  which  succeeds  it,  and  the  only 
waking  life  in  the  universe  be  that  of  God. 

I  assert  nothing.  On  this  subject  all  dogmatizing 
is  ridiculous.  All  positive  assertion  is  rebuked  by  the 
consciousness  of  imorance  and  limitation.  I  stand 
%vith  profound  submission  and  with  reverent  expecta- 
tion before  the  veiled  future  which  bounds  this  mortal 
span.  It  is  not  the  light  of  revelation,  but  the  candle 
of  conjecture,  which  I  hold  out  into  the  uncertain  dark. 

Thus  much  we  may  affirm  ;  and  the  more  w^e  medi- 
tate the  matter,  the  more  the  conviction  grows,  that 
this  interior  force  which  we  call  the  soul,  this  scheming 
and  productive  power  which  works  in  us  and  through 
us,  shaping  our  life  in  the  world,  and,  in  some  small 
measure,  the  world  by  our  life,  contriving  and  produc- 
ing, —  that  this  power,  I  say,  does  not  exhaust  itself 
in  these  productions.  The  capacity  remains  in  man's 
consciousness,  of  further  production.  The  scale  of  mor- 
tality which  bounds  and  measures  the  product  is  not 
the  measure  of  the  power.  It  is  not  the  measure  of  the 
soul.  We  die  in  the  midst  of  our  schemes.  The  fault 
is  not  in  the  schemes  that  they  break  off  and  stop 
short  of  their  fulfilment.  Nor  is  it  the  incapacity  of 
the  soul  that  fails  to  fulfil  them  ;  but  another  law  com- 
ing in,  another  force  breaking  through,  a  physical 
necessity,  cuts  them  short.  Does  that  force  destroy 
the  producing  power,  or  only  arrest  its  action  for  a 
season,  as  the  winter  stops  the  flowering  of  the  plant, 
leaving  the  root  unimpaired  for  further  production  ? 

The  organism  in  and  by  which  we  performed  our 
tasks  is  broken  up.     Are  we  that  organism?     Is  what 


172       RELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

we  call  the  soul  the  product  of  organization?  If  so, 
then  death  puts  an  end  to  us  and  our  work  for  ever. 
The  particles  which  composed  the  machine  may  work 
again  in  other  forms  of  which  they  shall  become  part ; 
but  of  us  and  our  work  there  is  an  end  for  ever.  But 
we  are  not  that  organism.  No  man  identifies  himself 
with  his  bodily  organs,  but  regards  these  as  some- 
thing external  to  himself,  something  which  clothes  him, 
something  which  he  inhabits.  We  are  not  the  hand 
surely,  nor  the  foot,  nor  the  trunk.  We  separate  in 
our  consciousness  between  self  and  each  particular  part, 
between  self  and  the  totality  of  parts.  There  is  a 
feeling  of  something  distinct,  detachable,  something 
which  is  not  part,  but  whole  and  indivisible,  transcend- 
ing organization,  surviving  it. 

We  lived  before  we  saw  the  light.  Our  embryo 
life  may  have  been  a  conscious  life  :  if  so,  what  dreams 
and  associations  were  interrupted  and  broken  up  when 
the  new-born  emerged  from  his  narrow,  dark  world,  — 

"  Like  a  shipwrecked  sailor  tost 
By  rough  waves  on  a  perilous  coast, 
Flung  by  laboring  nature  forth 
Upon  the  mercies  of  the  earth '' ! 

The  present  life  may  be  embryonic  with  relation  to 
some  future  life  of  the  soul,  and  the  discipline  of  this 
world  a  process  of  gestation,  in  which  the  gTcat  Mother 
travails  with  her  children  until  they  burst  the  matrix 
of  mortality,  and  put  on  new  life.  The  embryo  state 
ceases  :  the  life  it  enclosed  survives. 

But  how  survives?  In  what  form?  with  what  sur- 
roundings? with  what  human  or  superhuman  condi- 
tions?    Is  it  here,  on  this  earth,  that  we  resume  and 


THE    OLD   HOPE.  173 

pursue  our  calling?  Do  we  re-appear- again  and  again 
in  new  forms  of  humanity?  Or  do  we  migrate  to 
some  other  sphere?  Or  does  the  dissolution  of  the 
mortal  body  disengage  an  ethereal  form,  invisible  to 
the  eye  of  flesh,  which,  without  any  grosser  embodi- 
ment, contains  and  perpetuates  the  conscious  life? 
These  are  questions  for  which  reason  and  religion  have 
no  legitimate  answer,  other  than  a  candid  confession  of 
utter  and  helpless  ignorance.  Every  theory  we  may 
frame  of  the  future  of  the  soul  is  a  baseless  speculation. 
No  conclusion  which  philosophy  has  drawn  from  nature 
or  consciousness  can  lay  any  claim  to  scientific  credi- 
bility. All  our  inquiries  and  soundings  of  this  matter 
bring  us  no  nearer  the  truth.  We  want  the  first  and 
most  essential  condition  of  a  rational  theory  on  the 
subject.  We  do  not  even  know  what  the  soul  or  self 
of  the  individual,  as  distinguished  from  the  visible  per- 
son, is.  The  most  intelligible  theory  that  has  ever 
been  propounded  is  that  of  a  succession  of  human 
births  ;  the  soul,  at  death,  investing  itself  with  a  new 
body,  and  living  a  new  life  on  the  earth.  The  early 
Christians  also  believed  in  a  new  life  on  the  earth  for 
the  saints,  but  one  invested  with  the  same  body,  which 
they  supposed  would  be  raised  and  re-animated  *  for 

*  Science  protests  against  the  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  of  the  body- 
as  a  physical  impossibility,  on  the  ground  that  the  same  particles  have,  at 
different  times,  been  constituents  of  different  human  bodies.  I  attach  no 
great  importance  to  this  reasoning,  and  rather  suppose,  that,  if  the  resurrec- 
tion of  this  identical  body  were  desirable,  the  divine  chemistry  is  competent 
to  that  result.  Besides,  the  doctrine  does  not  contemplate  the  restoration 
of  every  ounce  of  flesh,  but  conceives  that  the  resurrection-body  will  recover 
so  much  of  the  present  as  to  constitute  essential  identity  of  the  outward 
man.  But  there  are  other  weighty  objections  to  the  doctrine,  which  sur- 
vives onlv  in  the  creeds  of  Christendom,  not  in  its  thought. 


374      RELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

the  purpose,  and  for  whose  millennial  abode  the  earth 
itself  would  be  renewed. 

There  are  moods  and  moments  when  the  wish  to 
renew  our  relations  with  this  earth,  or  to  know,  at 
least,  of  its  on-goings,  predominates  over  every  other 
feeling  in  our  contemplation  of  the  hereafter.  The 
founder  of  the  Hebrew  Commonwealth  is  represented, 
in  the  Pentateuch,  as  dying  within  sight  of  the  promised 
land  which  had  been  the  object  of  his  lifelong  endeavor. 
When  I  think  of  him  looking  from  the  summit  of  the 
border -mountain  into  that  fair  Canaan  into  which  it 
was  whispered  to  his  soul  that  he  should  not  live  to 
enter  and  take  possession  in  person,  it  seems  to  me 
that  an  irrepressible  longing  must  have  seized  the  heart 
of  the  prophet  to  visit,  in  the  day  of  their  prosperity, 
the  people  he  had  guided  in  weakness  and  want,  and 
to  witness  the  maturity  and  power  of  the  State  of 
which  he  had  laid  the  foundations,  at  the  foot  of  Horeb 
and  on  the  banks  of  the  Nile.  We,  too,  from  the 
height  of  our  own  time,  from  the  height  of  modern 
civilization,  discern  a  future  of  rich  promise,  —  a 
Canaan  of  social  progress  and  prosperity,  into  wliich 
our  descendants  shall  enter,  but  of  which  the  distant 
vision  only  is  granted  to  us.  Who  so  cold  or  so  indif- 
ferent to  human  weal  as  not  to  desire,  in  the  future  of 
the  soul  which  lies  for  us  beyond  the  Jordan  of  death, 
to  see  with  our  own  eyes  the  realization  of  this  great 
hope?  Who  would  not  wish  to  know  the  condition  of 
society  as  it  will  be  after  the  lapse  of  another  century, 
when  the  tendencies  which  are  now  at  work  in  human 
aifairs  shall  have  consummated  their  leo:itimate  fruit? 
An   astronomer,    speaking    of  Halley's    comet,   which 


THE   OLD  HOPE.  175 

returns  to  that  point  in  its  orbit  from  whence  it  is  visi- 
ble to  our  earth  after  an  interval  of — I  forget  how 
many  years,  remarks,  that,  "while  we  gaze  on  this 
mysterious  visitant,  not  without  a  feeling  of  sadness, 
knowing  that  its  larger  year  outspans  the  cycle  of  one 
of  earth's  fleeting  generations,  and  that,  when  it  once 
more  i«eturns,  it  will  tell  of  the  victories  of  science,  not 
to  us,  but  to  those  who  are  fast  forgetting  us,  the 
thought  clutches  by  the  heart,  that  man  must  be  im- 
mortal." From  the  same  feelino:  it  mis-ht  be  aro;ued, 
that  man  does  not  quit  this  earth  ;  that  the  life  of  the 
individual  must  be  co-present  to  all  the  generations  that 
come  after  him ;  that  he  must  realize,  in  his  individual 
experience,  all  that  collective  humanity,  in  all  time,  is 
destined  to  know,  to  produce,  and  to  be. 

This,  however,  is  reasoning  on  the  assumption,  that 
the  interest  of  this  present  must  be  the  interest  also 
of  the  life  to  come ;  that  "  quce  cura  fuit  vivis  eadem 
sequitur  tellure  repostos."  It  is  quite  possible  that  we 
may  exaggerate  the  importance  of  the  future  of  this 
planet  and  of  human  society,  in  relation  to  the  whole 
to  w^hich  they  and  we  belong ;  that,  however  momen- 
tous all  this  may  seem  to  us  now,  its  importance  will 
dwindle  into  nothing  w^ien  we  wake  from  the  dream  of 
mortality,  and  take  up  our  new  position  in  the  universe 
of  God.  This  world  and  its  belongings  may  then  be 
no  more  to  us  than  last  night's  dream,  whose  intense 
interest  we  scarce  recall  in  the  morning,  and  w^hose 
history  we  soon  dismiss  from  the  mind. 

Besides,  the  future  of  this  earth,  —  is  it  not  in  our- 
selves ?  All  that  collective  humanity  is  capable  of,  all 
that  the  ages  to  come  of  human  existence  shall  unfold 


176      RELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

in  long  procession, — the  whole  scope  and  theme  of 
mortal  years, — is  it  not  folded  up  in  the  individual 
soul?  All  that  man  can  be  is  in  us;  and,  wherever 
our  being  may  lodge  in  the  great  hereafter,  fast  as  that 
being  unfolds  we  shall  read  the  history  of  advancing 
man  in  our  own  progressive  life. 

The  more  prevailing  doctrine  concerning  the  form 
and  method  of  the  future  life  is  that  of  the  "  spiritual 
body,"  so  called,  —  a  finer  frame,  supposed  to  be  con- 
tained w^ithin  this  visible,  to  be  disengaged  from  it  by 
death,  and  to  constitute  thenceforth  the  vehicle  and 
dwelling  of  the  soul.  The  "  spiritual  body,"  if  I  rightly 
apprehend  it,  is  a  more  ethereal  body,  differing  from 
this  present  mainly  in  the  matter  of  weight,  and  exemp- 
tion from  animal  functions.  The  future  state  is  sup- 
posed to  be  a  realm  inhabited  by  these  ethereal  bodies, 
and  is  called  "the  spiritual  world."  Whatever  may  be 
thought  of  the  ontology  of  this  view,  its  claim  of  spir- 
ituality is  founded  on  mere  difference  of  mass  and  bulk. 
But  the  essence  of  spirit  consists  not  in  levity.  When 
we  talk  of  spirituality,  it  is  not  a  question  of  specific 
gravity,  of  thick  or  thin,  of  solid  or  fluid.  A  cubic 
foot  of  oxygen  is  no  more  spiritual  than  a  cubic  foot  of 
lead.  Light  and  electricity  are  just  as  material  as 
density  and  gravitation ;  and  a  body  of  a  hundred 
pound  weight  is  just  as  likely  a  vehicle  of  spirit,  and 
just  as  much  entitled  to  be  called  a  spiritual  body,  as 
any  imponderable  substance. 

We  speculate  into  thick  darkness  when  we  try  con- 
clusions wdth  the  region  beyond  the  grave.  Impervious 
night  baffles  all  intellectual  adventure  in  that  direction. 
We  shall  have  to  be  content  with  the  simple  fact  of 


THE   OLD  HOPE.  177 

immortality,  suggested  by  the  longing  heart,  and  con- 
firmed by  the  general  faith  of  mankind.  Enough  to 
know  that  the  bounded  horizon  of  this  mortal  is  not 
"  the  butt  and  seamark  of  my  utmost  sail ; "  that  the 
tickings  of  the  fleshly  heart  are  not  the  measure  of  the 
soul's  unending  day.  More  than  this  is  not  revealed ; 
and,  however  curiosity  may  burn  to  penetrate  the 
secret,  our  riper  reason  must  needs  bless  the  veil  of 
inscrutable  mystery  which  a  kind  God  has  thrown 
around  our  passage  hence,  and  the  deep,  unanswering 
silence,  which  baffles  science  but  fosters  hope. 

The  only  thing  that  can,  with  any  degree  of  cer- 
tainty, be  predicated  concerning  the  life  to  come,  is, 
that  its  character,  so  far  as  our  own  consciousness  for 
good  or  evil  is  concerned  in  it,  will  mainly  depend  on 
ourselves.  A¥hatever  may  be  the  mode  of  existence 
hereafter,  whatever  the  embodiment,  the  locality,  that 
which  to  us  is  most  essential  in  it  is  that  which  we 
brins:  to  it  of  our  own.  Our  life  is  from  within  ;  and  he 
who  would  know  what  his  state  and  pursuits  and  sensa- 
tions will  be,  when  this  mortal  is  put  off,  must  look  into 
his  own  heart,  and  see  what  he  finds  there  :  what  apti- 
tudes, what  tendencies,  what  inclinations  and  desires. 
To  suppose  that  Omnipotence  —  if  such  a  thing  be  pos- 
sible —  will  take  a  soul  out  from  all  its  past  habits  and 
belongings,  and  set  it  down  in  some  new  state  entirely 
foreign  from  its  bent  and  wont,  is  a  vain  imagination. 
But  this  we  may  hope,  that  the  God  to  whom  all  souls 
are  dear  will  compensate  past  defects  of  circumstance 
and  means,  and  provide  such  guidance  and  such  draw- 
ing as,  not  resisted,  shall  bring  the  wanderer  to  bless- 
edness at  last. 

12 


X. 

FREEDOM  IN  BONDS. 


X. 

FEEEDOM  IN  BONDS. 

The  beginning  of  conscious  existence  to  finite  beings  is 
the  sense  of  limitation.  The  first  experience  which 
consciousness  reports  is  one  which  separates  us  from  all 
other  being,  and  draws  the  boundary-line  of  our  per- 
sonal estate.  The  first  thino^  which  the  infant  learns 
from  its  contact  with  the  world  is  the  fact  of  bounds. 
Its  sensations  are  crossed  by  a  foreign  existence ;  its 
efforts  are  thwarted  by  a  foreign  power.  Every  subse- 
quent age  repeats  and  confirms  this  first  experience. 
We  are  not  free,  as  "  the  natural  man  "  interprets  and 
postulates  freedom.  Our  freedom,  in  that  sense,  is 
narrowly  circumscribed.  On  all  sides,  we  are  straitened 
and  cramped,  —  walled  in  by  adamantine  necessity. 

Every  wish  we  breathe  confesses  limitation.  Every 
wish  is  a  feeling  of  restraint,  a  conflict  between  soul 
and  circumstance.  And  wishes  multiply  as  fast  as  the 
means  of  gratifying  them.  You  are  straitened  in  your 
affairs ;  you  desire  a  competent  support.  Imagine 
that  competence  obtained,  and  desire  is  as  active  as 
before.  Your  property  must  be  so  vested  as  to  give 
absolute  immunity  from  loss  or  care.  Health  you  must 
have  to  enjoy  your  fortune ;  social  position,  to  command 

[181] 


182       RELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

the  respect  of  j^our  fellow-men.  You  must  be  happy 
in  your  family,  happy  in  all  your  connections.  You 
must  live  to  a  good  old  age  without  the  infirmities  of 
age.  And,  when  every  thing  is  fixed  according  to  your 
desire,  the  end  of  all  things  stares  you  in  the  face ;  and 
you  find,  in  your  finite  nature,  a  limit  which  bounds 
the  uttermost  good  that  fortune  can  bestow. 

Every  lot  in  life  has  its  limits,  and  the  limits  are 
equally  oppressive  in  all.  From  whatever  point  we  set 
out,  the  goal  of  perfection  is  equally  remote.  Happi- 
ness is  not  the  end  of  a  line,  alons;  which  our  fortunes 
are  ranged  in  diflferent  degrees  of  proximity  :  it  is  the 
centre  of  a  circle ;  and  all  human  conditions  lie  in 
the  same  circumference,  at  equal  distances  around  it. 
The  feeling  of  limitation  depends,  not  on  circumstance, 
but  on  ourselves.  With  a  happy  temper,  the  law  is 
easy,  and  the  limits  large ;  with  a  discontented,  fretful 
spirit,  the  limits  are  close,  and  the  law  is  hard.  But 
none  are  so  happy  as  never  to  feel  the  restrictions 
which  limit  and  shut  in  our  mortal  life.  We  may  not 
rebel  against  our  lot ;  and  yet  the  universal  conditions 
to  which  humanity  is  subject  shall  sometimes  pain  us 
with  their  sharp  restraints.  Time  and  space,  climate, 
weather,  sickness,  death,  everywhere  oppose  our  de- 
sires. We  feel  our  incapacity  to  be  and  to  do  what 
our  better  instincts  prompt ;  we  can  never  quite  come 
up  with  our  conscience ;  we  can  never  quite  burst  the 
meshes  of  weakness  and  sense.  Then,  too,  the  inevita- 
ble course  of  events  rushes  on,  regardless  of  our  wishes  ; 
and  all  our  sighs  and  prayers  cannot  extort  the  least 
dispensation  from  nature  or  time.  When  heaviness 
weighs  on  our  spirits,  we  cannot  take  wings  and  fly 


FREEDOM   IN   BONDS.  183 

away ;  we  cannot  escape  the  weary  sameness  and  wea- 
rier changes  of  life.  We  cannot  prevent  the  loss  of 
friends  and  the  bitter  disappointments  of  fate.  We 
witness  suffering  which  we  cannot  relieve,  changes  we 
cannot  avert,  vice  we  cannot  reform.  Who  so  hard 
or  who  so  wise  as  to  care  for  none  of  these  things,  — 
as  never  to  wish  that  the  everlastino;  law  mio'ht  for 
once  relent  in  his  behalf? 

We  find  a  limit  in  the  strict  compensation  which  per- 
vades all  departments  of  life,  and  qualifies  all  the  gifts 
and  advantao;es  allotted  to  man.  One  thino;  is  set  off 
against  another.  You  can  have  no  good,  without  in- 
curring the  risk  of  some  proportionate  evil.  You  can 
have  no  pleasure,  but  some  pain  goes  with  it.  Nothing 
is  given  for  nothing ;  every  thing  must  be  bought  with 
its  proper  price.  Our  very  existence  is  not  given:  we 
must  pay  for  it  with  ceaseless  care  and  toil,  and  the 
moral  obligations  it  imposes.  The  higher  the  condition 
into  which  you  are  born,  the  greater  the  struggle  to 
maintain  that  condition,  and  the  greater  the  cares  and 
obli2:ations  which  it  brins^s.  The  savao-e  needs  little  to 
maintain  his  meagre  existence.  'His  rude  weapons  and 
strong  limbs  will  procure  him  the  food  and  raiment 
which  his  fathers  enjoyed.  His  means  are  as  ample  as 
the  forest  and  the  flood ;  but  his  wants  are  cheap,  his 
gratifications  few.  The  civilized  man  has  greater 
needs,  and  greater  pains  to  satisfy  them.  He  asks 
more  of  the  world,  and  the  world  demands  more  of 
him.  The  more  we  multiply  the  means  of  enjoyment, 
the  more  we  multiply  the  sources  of  pain.  If  you 
build  an  expensive  house,  and  surround  yourself  with 
splendid  furnitures  and  costly  decorations,  you  have  the 


184      RELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

trouble  of  keeping  these  things  in  order,  and  the  feai 
that  they  may  pass  out  of  your  hands.  You  musl 
burden  yourself  with  domestic  cares  :  for  every  con- 
venience which  you  introduce  into  your  establishment, 
you  must  take  some  inconvenience  in  its  train.  If  you 
live  simply  and  at  little  cost,  you  forego  some  of  the 
gratifications  of  taste ;  but  you  avoid  also  the  cares 
which  they  involve.  If  you  indulge  your  affections, 
form  friendships,  gather  a  family  around  you,  and  entei 
into  near  relations  with  your  fellow-men,  you  gratify 
your  social  nature,  and  enjoy  the  precious  satisfactions 
of  love :  at  the  same  time,  you  lay  yourself  open  to 
painful  anxieties  and  poignant  griefs  unknown  to  him 
who  leads  a  solitary  life.  If  you  lead  a  solitary  life, 
you  escape  a  world  of  care,  and  lose  a  world  of  enjoy- 
ment. Whatever  is  gained  in  one  way  is  lost  in 
another ;  whatever  good  you  pursue,  you  must  pay  its 
price.  If  you  seek  wealth,  you  must  pay  the  price  of 
ceaseless  drudgery  and  livelong  care  ;  if  you  seek 
knowledge  and  intellectual  culture,  you  must  pay  the 
price  of  long  devotion,  rigid  self-denial,  late  watchings, 
early  risings,  and  a  resolute  renunciation  of  other  good, 
which  may  or  may  not  be  added  unto  you.  If  you 
seek  ease  and  present  comfort,  you  must  pay  the  price 
of  obscurity  and  insignificance.  If  you  seek  the  king- 
dom of  God,  you  must  renounce  the  world;  if  you 
love  the  world,  you  must  forego  the  kingdom  of 
God. 

Life  itself,  and  every  circumstance  of  life,  is  amena- 
ble to  the  law  of  compensation.  It  is  the  first  statute, 
—  the  regulative  principle  in  all  human  things.  It 
pervades,  like  gravitation,  the  whole  economy  of  na- 


FREEDOM   IN   BONDS.  185 

ture.  Disturb  it  in  one  place,  and  it  rights  itself  in 
another.  If  the  tide  rises  here,  it  ebbs  there.  If  the 
ocean  loses  by  evaporation,  the  air  gains.  It  always 
takes  so  much  to  eifect  so  much.  Eternal  Justice 
holds  in  opposite  scales  the  good  and  ill  of  life  :  what- 
ever is  added  to  one  scale  is  rectified  by  its  just  equiva- 
lent in  the  other.  There  may  be  occasional  oscillations  ; 
an  unwonted  pressure,  a  momentary  success,  may  cause 
one  side  or  the  other  to  preponderate  for  a  while  :  but 
the  re-action  is  always  equal  to  the  action ;  the  equi- 
librium is  never  long  disturbed. 

We  find  a  limit  in  the  law  of  retribution  which 
avenges  every  unlawful  advantage,  and  punishes  every 
sinful  act.  Since  the  beginning  of  the  world,  no  man 
ever  A\Tono:ed  another  without  wronsrino^  himself.  No 
man  ever  consulted  his  private  advantage  at  the  ex- 
pense of  his  neighbor,  or  the  gratification  of  his  senses 
at  the  expense  of  his  morals,  without  incurring  the 
penalty  annexed  to  such  acts.  It  is  the  underside  of 
that  evil  deed  of  which  the  advantage  sought  is  the 
upperside.  Cut  never  so  fine,  shave  never  so  close, 
you  cannot  divide  the  benefit  from  the  wrong.  The 
penalty  is  a  part  of  the  thing.  Sin  is  a  poisoned  fruit. 
No  art  has  yet  been  able  to  separate  the  sweet  from  the 
noxious,  the  taste  in  the  mouth  from  the  mischief  in 
the  soul.  Every  little  dishonesty  in  worldly  dealings, 
every  falsehood  of  speech,  every  spiteful  word  or  act, 
every  sensual  excess,  judges  itself  more  surely,  more 
adequately,  than  any  court  can  judge  it.  Men  do  not  see 
the  judgment,  because  it  is  not  an  object  of  sense ;  but 
to  deny  it  is  not  to  believe  in  the  soul.  Every  temp- 
tation to  which  I  yield  is  so  much  lost  to  the  soul's 


186      RELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

growth.  Every  sin  is  a  misstep  which  has  got  to  be 
rectified.  By  just  so  much  as  honesty  is  better  than 
fraud,  by  just  so  much  as  kindness  is  better  than  injury, 
by  just  so  much  as  self-command  is  better  than  indul- 
gence, by  just  so  much  am  I  punished  for  every  trans- 
pTCssion.  The  stratification  souo'ht  bv  unlawful  means 
is  never  realized  :  it  slips  through  the  fingers  ;  and,  in 
all  the  annals  of  crime,  there  was  never  a  transgressor 
who  would  say  that  he  had  bettered  his  condition  by 
any  wrong  act  which  he  did. 

So,  then,  in  every  direction  I  find  a  limit  which 
bounds  my  will  and  defines  my  life.  I  am  fenced  with 
stern  conditions,  compassed  about  with  everlasting 
denials.  My  freedom  is  an  island  of  small  extent  in 
an  ocean  of  necessity  which  opposes,  on  every  side,  an 
inexorable  bar  to  my  finite  power.  In  vain  do  we 
chafe  a2:ainst  these  bonds  ;  in  vain  do  we  strive  with  the 
limits  which  contain  our  little  life.  There  is  nothinsr 
for  it  but  to  take  the  conditions  we  cannot  annul,  and 
accommodate  ourselves  as  we  may  to  our  narrow  orbit. 
Is  it  an  evil  that  we  are  thus  limited,  —  that  our  free- 
dom, our  capacity,  is  not  absolute,  but  circumscribed? 
Behold  here  the  method  of  the  highest  good  ! 

For  what  is  the  highest  good  ?  Every  creature  has 
its  proper  destination  ;  and,  in  the  fulfilment  of  that 
destination,  the  his^hest  p'ood  for  that  creature  consists. 
But  no  creature  can  fulfil  its  destination,  except  it  abide 
within  the  limits  prescribed  for  it.  The  inanimate  sub- 
stances of  nature  are  useful  only  when  restricted  and 
confined.  Gold  would  be  useless,  if  less  rare  than  it  is. 
Iron  is  useful  only  when  reduced  to  suitable  forms  ; 
and  all  form  is  limitation.     The  burning  gas  is  useless 


FREEDOM    IN    BONDS.  187 

^v]lile  it  flickers  and  flares  in  unrestrained  freedom  ;  but 
reduce  and  control  its  issue,  and  it  radiates  a  serviceable 
light.  What  more  useless  than  the  vapor  which  escapes 
from  boiling  water,  in  its  free  and  diffuse  state?  It 
wastes  itself  in  air ;  it  mingles  with  the  clouds,  and 
returns  to  the  earth  ac^ain  according:  to  its  circuit.  But 
confine  it  within  the  iron  chambers  of  a  steam-engine, 
and  it  becomes  a  mighty  and  beneficent  power ;  it 
gives  wings  to  motion,  extends  the  spirit's  conquest 
over  matter,  and  is  made  subservient  to  all  the  arts  of 
life. 

Look  next  at  organized  beings.  Consider  the  plant. 
That  blade  of  wheat  is  destined  to  bear  so  many  ker- 
nels, according  to  its  kind.  But  not  one  kernel  could 
ever  come  to  perfection,  were  not  the  plant  confined 
within  certain  limits  which  it  cannot  transgress.  Na- 
ture must  bound  herself  in  one  way,  that  she  may- 
glorify  herself  in  another.  If  the  growth  of  that  stalk 
were  not  arrested  when  it  reached  a  certain  prescribed 
stature  and  bulk,  if  it  continued  to  grow  beyond  its 
proper  dimensions,  the  vegetative  power  allotted  to  it 
would  be  exhausted  in  disproportionate  expansion  of 
volume,  and  the  stalk  would  absorb  what  was  meant 
for  the  fruit.  The  plant  would  fall  short  of  its  destina- 
tion in  striving  to  exceed  it.  In  like  manner,  the  ani- 
mal economy  is  a  system  of  forces  and  limitations, 
working  together  for  a  common  end.  Every  muscle 
is  balanced  by  some  antagonist  muscle,  every  organ  is 
qualified  by  some  associate  organ,  every  instinct  is  lim- 
ited by  some  counter  instinct ;  and  so  the  whole  is  kept 
within  the  type,  and  made  to  fill  up  the  type,  in  which 
and  for  which  it  was   formed.      The  bird  has  wino^s 


188      RELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

which  lift  it  above  the  earth ;  but,  lest  it  should  lose 
itself  in  endless  space,  it  has  instincts  and  gravitation 
which  draw  it  to  earth  again.  Beasts  of  prey  have 
instincts  which  prompt  them  to  devour ;  but,  to  keep 
the  peace  of  nature,  they  have  also  a  love  of  repose 
which  prompts  them  to  rest  when  their  hunger  is 
stilled. 

So  man,  the  head  and  crown  of  creation,  has  Ms 
type  and  design,  within  which  his  perfection  and  happi- 
ness lies,  and  out  of  which  there  is  no  perfection  or 
happiness  for  him.  If  he  transgresses  this  type  in  any 
direction,  he  sacrifices  more  than  he  gains.  If  he  goes 
too  far  in  one  way,  he  loses  something  in  another.  If 
he  attempts  to  be  more  than  man,  he  becomes  less  than 
man.  The  chief  and  only  good  is  to  be  man,  —  simply 
man ;  to  unfold,  in  its  just  proportions,  our  human 
nature,  taking  heed  that  no  part  or  function  or  faculty 
shall  trespass  on  any  other,  but  that  all  conspire  to 
fulfil  the  perfect  image  of  God  in  which  our  being  is 
cast.  This  type  of  ours  is  constituted  and  maintained 
by  those  very  laws,  physical  and  moral,  which  we  find 
m  our  experience,  and  to  which  we  must  needs  submit, 
seeing  that  obedience  to  them  is  sure  and  only  good. 

Imagine  these  limitations  removed,  suppose  these 
laws  abolished,  paint  to  yourself  that  unbounded  capa- 
city or  that  unbridled  license  which  your  fancy  may 
have  craved  when  hampered  and  confined  by  the  close 
conditions  of  life ;  you  will  see  that  nothing  would  be 
gained,  that  every  thing  would  be  sacrificed  by  the 
abolition  of  those  laws  against  which  you  chafe.  The 
imagination  can  picture  no  condition  more  appalling 
than  that  of  a  creature  absolved  from  law.      Suppose 


FREEDOM   IN   BONDS,  189 

an  instance  of  such  emancipation.  Suppose  the  All- 
ruler  to  take  off  the  restraints  of  law  from  matter.  Or 
suppose  but  one  law  —  the  law  of  gravitation  —  sus- 
pended, and  suppose  that  suspension  to  take  effect  in.  a 
single  planet  only,  of  the  solar  system.  Imagine  one 
lawless  planet.  Loose  the  centripetal  bond  and  set  it 
adrift.  See  it  wander  madly  from  its  native  sphere, 
aimless,  pathless,  into  infinite  space.  It  entangles 
itself  with  foreign  firmaments,  amazing,  with  its  law- 
less presence,  the  loyal  orbs  that  move  obedient  in 
their  steady  rounds  ;  perplexing  their  path  with  incalcu- 
lable nodes,  and  missing  the  sweet  influences  of  its 
kindred  sky,  —  an  intruder  in  orderly  places,  the  vaga- 
bond of  creation,  unblessing  and  unblest.  Suppose 
that  body  endowed  with  consciousness,  how  would  it 
long  for  its  old  beat !  how  gladly  submit  itself  to  saving 
law,  and  return,  after  fruitless  and  joyless  roving,  to 
its  safe  perihelion  and  its  brother  stars  !  Carry  this 
idea  into  the  moral  world.  Suppose  mankind  absolved 
from  their  allegiance  to  right  and  duty ;  suppose  that 
no  one  finds  in  himself,  or  out  of  himself,  any  law 
restraining  his  inclinations ;  that  each  one  does  what 
passion  urges  or  impulse  suggests  ;  —  would  that  be  a 
comfortable  state  of  society?  No  hell  within  the  com- 
pass of  human  imagination  could  exceed  the  possibili- 
ties of  such  a  state. 

But  aside  from  those  possibilities,  and  aside  fi'om  the 
harm  to  others,  consider  only  the  loss  to  himself  which 
man  must  suffer  in  the  absence  of  law  and  restraint. 
Pushing  his  propensity  in  one  direction  without  limit, 
as  each  should  incline,  none  would  fulfil  the  design  of 
his  being ;  none  would  be  man,  but  something  else  and 


190      RELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

less  than  man.  Pursuing  one  object  and  excluding 
others,  he  would  sacrifice  his  entireness  to  that  one. 
This  man  would  give  himself  to  sensual  indulgence, 
and  become  an  organ  of  sense.  That  one  would 
give  himself  up  to  repose,  and  become  a  stone. 
One  would  be  all  intellect,  another  all  feeling ;  none 
would  be  man.  To  be  an  entire  man,  to  fulfil  his 
type,  is  the  highest  to  which  man  can  aspire.  To  this 
end,  as  the  vessel  is  conformed  to  its  mould,  we  are 
placed  in  a  framework  of  laws  which  prescribe  the 
dimensions  and  the  plan  we  are  to  fill,  that  no  pro- 
pensity may  exceed  its  due,  but  each  be  developed  in 
harmony  with  all  the  rest,  until  we  reach  the  perfect 
man.  We  are  limited  on  every  side,  and  bound  in 
each  particular,  that  we  may  be  glorified  in  the  whole. 
Our  nature,  to  be  perfect,  must  be  restrained.  Let  us 
not  chafe,  but  glory  in  these  bonds,  and  welcome  every 
law  which  we  find  in  our  condition  and  in  ourselves  as 
the  finger  of  God  in  the  uncertainties  of  life,  pointing 
out  the  path  which  alone  can  bring  us  the  satisfaction 
we  seek. 

I  have  spoken  of  law  as  a  limitation  of  freedom ;  but 
law  is  also  a  condition  of  freedom.  A  nearer  view  will 
show  that  law  and  liberty  are  co-ordinate.  We  find, 
as  we  ascend  in  the  scale  of  life,  each  order  of  beings 
more  free  than  the  one  beneath  it.  The  plant  is  rooted 
in  the  ground :  it  has  no  freedom  of  locomotion ;  its 
only  liberty  consists  in  turning  its  leaves  to  the  sun, 
and  opening  its  pores  to  the  atmospheric  influences 
which  supply  it  nurture.  The  shellfish  clings  to  its 
native  rock,  and  has  no  liberty  but  to  open  its  valves 
<tnd  receive  the  nourishment  conveyed  to  it  by  the  ele- 


FKEEDOM   IN   BONDS.  191 

ment  it  inhabits.  The  quadruped  has  the  freedom  of 
the  field  and  the  forest :  it  procures  its  food  by  its  own 
effort,  and  exercises  volition.  Man  has  the  ranofc  of 
the  planet,  and  not  only  freedom  of  locomotion,  but 
freedom  of  thought  and  action :  he  can  choose  his  path 
and  mode  of  life ;  he  can  choose  between  good  and 
evil.  Man  is  freer  than  planet  or  brute ;  but  is  man 
less  subject  to  law  than  they?  On  the  contrary,  the 
laws  which  govern  him  are  more  numerous  and  com- 
plex than  those  which  govern  the  inferior  orders.  The 
plant  obeys  no  law  but  that  of  vegetable  life  ;  the  brute 
obeys  no  law  but  those  of  animal  nature  :  but  man,  in 
addition  to  the  physical  laws  which  comprehend  him 
with  the  rest  of  creation,  is  amenable  also  to  civil, 
social,  moral  and  spiritual  laws,  which  claim  his  alle- 
giance. 

Law  is  a  restriction  of  liberty  to  those  only  who 
resist  its  control.  The  way  to  surmount  this  restraint 
is  by  perfect  obedience  ;  by  accepting  the  law  so  entirely, 
by  so  identifying  our  wills  with  the  supreme  Will  which 
ordained  it,  that  we  become  ourselves  a  party  to  the 
law.  Then  it  ceases  to  be  restraint,  and  becomes  our 
own  volition.  We  say  that  the  plant  grows  freely 
when  it  grows  as  nature  designed,  without  artificial 
restraint,  according  to  the  law  of  its  organization. 
We  call  the  bird  free  when  it  moves  in  obedience  to  the 
law  in  its  members.  If  tree  and  bird  were  conscious, 
they  would  feel  that  they  were  following  their  own 
inclinations,  although  the  direction  of  every  twig  in  the 
one,  and  the  motion  of  every  muscle  in  the  other,  is 
determined  by  strict  necessity.  Man  is  free  when  he 
freely  obeys  the  law  in  his  mind.     There  is  no  freedom 


192       EELIGION  WITHIN  THE  BOUNDS  OF  THEISM. 

if  we  look  for  It  outside  of  ourselves,  if  we  seek  it  in 
circumstance.  The  inner  world  alone  is  free  or  capa- 
ble of  freedom.  We  are  all  thrown  upon  circumstances 
which  do  not  answer  to  our  ideal ;  the  universe  about 
us  has  its  laws  and  methods  against  which  human  pas- 
sions beat  in  vain,  and  gain  nothing  but  their  own  foam 
flung  back  upon  them  from  the  adamantine  negations 
which  God  opposes  to  their  hungry  tide.  The  world  is 
inexorably  conditioned,  and  conditions  us ;  and  we 
sometimes  weary  of  our  estate,  and  pine  as  in  bondage. 
The  homesick  soul  demands  its  release.  Oh  that  we 
had  wings  to  lift  us  above  the  confining  tasks  and 
drudgery  of  life  !  The  only  way  to  escape  this  bond- 
age is  to  give  ourselves  to  it  with  mind  and  heart ;  to 
find  our  life  in  our  task,  our  freedom  in  our  obliga- 
tions ;  to  make  our  good- will  as  broad  as  our  necessity. 
Resist  the  law  of  duty,  and  it  galls  you  with  an  iron 
grip ;  seek  to  evade  it,  it  pursues  you  with  a  merci- 
less lash ;  accept  it,  and  it  becomes  a  law  of  liberty. 
The  skin  which  bounds  this  mortal  body  we  do  not  feel 
to  be  a  confinement,  because  it  is  a  part  of  ourselves, 
a  secretion  of  kindred  matter,  a  fabric  of  our  own 
blood.  So,  when  we  have  come  into  perfect  harmony 
with  God  by  willing  obedience,  the  law  which  had 
seemed  to  us  imposed  by  a  foreign  power  shall  be  seen 
to  proceed  from  ourselves,  to  be  a  part  of  our  nature, 
—  the  spontaneous  expression  of  our  wills  ;  and  there- 
fore no  longer  a  bond,  but  a  graceful  and  transparent 
covering  with  which  the  soul  arrays  aiid  protects  its 
sacred  life.  We  shall  see  the  absurdity  then  of  wishing 
that  any  thing  in  this  world  were  other  than  it  is. 
Every  regret  will  be  seen  to  be  injustice  to  ourselves 


FEEEDOM  IN  BONDS.  193 

and  impiety  toward  God.  Then  shall  cease  the  feeling 
of  obli<?ation.  The  lans^uasre  of  command  shall  be 
heard  no  more.  "Thou  shalt  "  and  "thou  shalt  not," 
"  must "  and  "  ought,"  those  stern  sentinels  of  the  soul 
that  keep  such  jealous  watch  of  our  actions,  shall  be 
discharged  from  their  superfluous  posts.  Choice  shall 
then  be  our  only  obligation ;  "  I  may  "  and  "  I  will,"  our 
ten  commandments. 


BOOK  SECOOT). 


PRELIMINARY. 

THE  CAUSE  OF  REASON  THE  CAUSE  OF 

FAITH. 


BOOK  SECOOT). 


THE  CAUSE  OF  REASON  THE  CAUSE  OF 

FAITH. 

The  earliest  controversy  in  the  Christian  Church, 
though  concerning  a  matter  of  purely  practical  import, 
involved  a  theory  of  the  rights  of  reason  which  marked 
the  new  era  then  dawning  on  the  world.  It  was  vir- 
tually a  conflict  of  reason  with  authority,  —  a  revolt  of 
the  emancipated  intellect  against  ecclesiastical  rule. 
Antioch,  representative  of  rationalism  and  liberty,  was 
arrayed  against  Jerusalem,  jealous  custodian  of  old 
tradition.  The  remarkable  thing  in  this  controversy 
is,  that  the  rationalistic  side  was  the  side  of  faith. 
Although,  in  relation  to  Judaism  and  Jewish  Christi- 
anity, the  rationalism  of  Paul  and  his  party  assumed  a 
negative  and  destructive  character,  its  real  import  w^as 
divinely  positive.  Opposition  to  authority  was  only 
deeper  fidelity  to  Christ.  The  cause  of  reason  was,  in 
this  case,  the  cause  of  faith ;  and  the  term  "  Faith " 
became  the  technical  designation  of  rationalistic  or 
Pauline,  as  disthiguished  from  Jewish,   Christianity. 

[1971 


198  RATIONAL  CHEISTIANITY. 

In  many  of  the  later  controversies  of  the  Church, 
and  especially  in  those  of  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  cen- 
turies, we  note  the  same  coalition  of  reason  with  faith 
in  the  war  against  authority.  The  men  of  faith  were 
the  infidels  of  the  Church.  Such  were  Abelard,  and 
Arnold  of  Brescia,  Henry  of  Cluny,  and  Gerhard  of 
Parma. 

And  the  great  controversy  of  all,  the  central  contro- 
versy of  modern  history,  —  that  which  severed  the 
German  churches  from  the  Latin,  —  exhibits  pre-emi- 
nently this  relation  and  antagonism  of  faith  and  reason 
with  authority.  Luther,  the  arch-rationalist  of  the  old 
Church,  is  the  hero  and  type  of  faith  to  all  succeeding 
generations  of  the  new.  In  every  clear  conflict  between 
reason  and  authority,  the  genius  of  Christianity  inclines 
to  the  rational  side.  The  cause  of  reason  is  ever  the 
cause  of  faith. 

Yet  no  delusion  is  more  current  than  that  which 
identifies  faith  with  implicit  submission  to  ecclesiastical 
authority,  and  confounds  rationalism  with  unbelief. 

The  Protestant  Church,  while  practically  basing 
itself  on  the  rights  of  reason,  in  its  abnegation  of  irra- 
tional dogma,  has  never  duly  appreciated,  or  even 
theoretically  acknowledged,  that  position, — has  never 
heartily  accepted  the  legitimate  construction  of  that 
position,  and  its  obvious  consequences.  The  term 
Rationalism,  which  truly  expresses  that  position,  is, 
with  Liberal  Christians  as  well  as  with  the  exclusive 
sects,  a  term  of  reproach,  conveying  an  idea  of  some 
impious  and  unholy  license.  In  the  mind  of  the  liberal 
as  well  as  of  the  exclusive,  faith  Is  associated  only  with 
authority,  and  dissociated  from  reason.     Rationalism  is 


THE  CAUSE  OF  REASON  THAT  OF  FAIl-H.    199 

regarded  as  in  principle  unbelief,  in  practice  sacrilege. 
This  abuse  of  the  term,  and  consequent  disgust  to  the 
thing,  is  partly  due  to  the  old  association  of  the  word 
with  a  class  of  theologians  now  extinct,  and  whose 
methods  and  conclusions  rational  criticism  itself  dis- 
avows. But  the  misapplication  of  a  principle  does  not 
invalidate  the  principle  itself,  nor  ought  the  mistakes  of 
a  Paulus  or  a  Strauss  to  discourage  the  application  of 
reason  to  religion.  Rationalism  means  that,  and  noth- 
ing more.  Reason  may  err  in  some  of  its  conclusions ; 
but  reason  is  none  the  less  the  supreme  arbiter  in  theol- 
ogy. Its  errors  can  be  consistently  refuted  by  Protes- 
tants, only  on  rationalistic  grounds.  Only  the  Romanist 
can  with  consistency  speak  of  rationalism  in  the  way 
of  reproach.  Protestantism  assumes  the  application  of 
reason  to  reli2:ion  as  the  basis  of  its  ecclesiastical  life. 
Whoever  calls  that  princijile  In  question,  whoever  finds 
or  intends  reproach  in  the  word  Rationalism,  abandons 
the  Protestant  ground,  and  confesses  himself  in  spirit 
and  temper  a  Romanist.  Whoever  allows  that  principle 
at  all,  and  allows  it  in  himself,  must  allow  it  in  others, 
and  allow  it  without  stint,  while  even  rejecting  the  con- 
clusions of  those  who  adopt  it.  Reason  or  Rome,  — 
there  is  no  middle  ground. 

If  the  Protestant  principle  is  false,  then  the  Church 
of  Rome  is  infallibly  true  in  all  its  policy  and  all  its 
doctrine ;  and  we  are  all  heretics  and  doomed  who  are 
out  of  that  communion,  havinoj  the  understandins^  irre- 
mediably  darkened,  for  ever  alienated  from  the  life  of 
God  through  the  blindness  of  our  hearts.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  Protestant  principle  is  true, — if  we 
believe  in  it  and  profess  it,  —  then  in  Christ's  name  let 


200  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

US  stand  by  it  manfully,  and  follow  it  boldly,  and  con- 
fide in  it  frankly,  and  not  be  scared  by  a  name,  nor 
wish  to  scare  others.  When  a  fellow-Protestant  ad- 
vances opinions  which  seem  to  us  false,  irreligious, 
dangerous,  let  us  try  those  opinions  by  their  own  merits 
or  demerits,  and  judge  them  by  their  own  evidence  or 
want  of  evidence,  and  not  assail  them  with  the  anile  cry 
of  Rationalism,  as  if  that  trait  were  itself  a  sufficient 
condemnation,  w^hereas  in  fact  it  is  their  only  title  to 
be  so  much  as  criticised.  As  Protestants,  we  are 
all  rationalists  in  the  fundamental  principle  of  our 
ecclesiastical  position  :  we  may  repudiate  this  or  that 
rationalistic  conclusion ;  but  we  may  not  repudiate,  or 
repudiating  cannot  escape,  the  principle  itself.  If 
rationalism  be  a  sin,  that  sin  have  we  incurred,  and  are 
now  — 

"  Stepped  in  so  far  that,  should  we  wade  no  more, 
Returning  were  as  tedious  as  go  o'er." 

There  is  nothing  for  it  but  to  hold  on,  —  if  we  admit  the 
principle  at  all,  to  stand  by  it  manfully,  to  acquiesce  in 
all  its  legitimate  applications,  to  let  full  daylight  in  on 
our  beliefs,  to  follow  trustingly  where  reason  leads,  to 
accept  the  results  of  competent,  honest  criticism,  and 
whatever  unbiassed  and  conscientious  investigation  shall 
approve.  We  must  seek  some  other  term  to  express 
that  negative  position  and  tendency  in  religion  which 
piety  deplores.  If  criticism  in  any  case  exhibits  an 
unmistakable  spirit  of  hostility  to  religion,  call  it  irre- 
ligion,  infidelity;  —  give  it  some  name  expressive  of 
that  hostility,  and  not  one  which,  so  used,  casts  re- 
proach on  criticism  and  on  reason  itself. 


THE  CAUSE   OF  REASON   THAT   OF  FAITH.  201 

Protestantism  is,  historically  and  theoretically,  a 
contest  of  reason  against  ecclesiastical  authority.  In 
prosecuting  this  contest,  the  Reformation  summoned  to 
its  aid  another  authority  by  which  to  offset  the  authority 
of  Rome,  —  the  Bible.  The  consequence  was^  that 
the  Bible  came,  in  the  Protestant  world,  to  occupy  the 
place  which  the  Church  had  occupied  in  the  Roman 
Catholic.  Not  only  authority,  but  infallibility,  was 
claimed  for  it,  —  an  infallibility  extending  to  every  jot 
and  tittle  of  the  text.  An  infallible  book  replaced  the 
infallible  Church.  The  letter  of  Scripture  was  now 
the  immediate  voice  of  God,  and  must  countervail  the 
clearest  perceptions  of  reason  and  the  strongest  testi- 
mony of  the  heart.  A  more  developed  and  instructed 
Protestantism  perceives  the  monstrousness  of  this  as- 
sumption, and  steadfastly  protests,  and  will  continue 
to  protest,  against  it.  I  call  it  an  assumption  because 
it  is  wholly  destitute  of  either  external  or  internal 
evidence ;  and,  in  spite  of  the  rooted  impression  of 
most  Protestant  communions,  and  hard  as  the  assertion 
may  sound,  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  this 
assumption  of  the  infallibility  of  Scripture  in  every 
topic  and  word  of  its  contents  is  more  indefensible  and 
wide  of  the  truth  than  that  of  the  infallibility  of  the 
Church  of  Rome,  or  the  claim  of  her  primate  to  be 
the  vicegerent  of  Christ  on  earth.  Authority  is  not 
infallibility ;  neither  is  inspiration  infallibility.  The 
authority  of  Scripture  is  incomplete  without  the  assent 
of  reason  ;  and,  in  things  doubtful  and  insusceptible  of 
demonstration,  authority  can  mean  nothing  more  than 
the  strong  presumption  in  favor  of  a  view  or  a  fact 
from  the   providential  position  and  inspiration  of  the 


202  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

writer.  For,  not  to  insist  on  the  previous  question, 
whether  in  the  nature  of  things  a  writing  can  be,  not 
only  a  permanent  depositary,  but  a  lasting  and  ever- 
lasting and  exact  exponent  of  the  truth,  our  evidence 
that  any  particular  writing  is  from  God  can  never  be 
stronger  than  the  evidence  of  reason  for  or  against  the 
matter  contained  in  it. 

This  momentous  principle  —  the  very  kernel  of  Pro- 
testantism —  was  clearly  seen  and  distinctly  stated  by 
Locke.  "Revelation,"  he  says,  "where  God  has  been 
pleased  to  give  it,  must  carry  it  against  the  probable 
conjectures  of  reason.  .  .  .  But  yet  it  still  belongs  to 
reason  to  judge  of  the  truth  of  its  being  a  revelation, 
and  of  the  sis^nification  of  the  words  wherein  it  is 
delivered.  Indeed,  if  any  thing  shall  be  thought  reve- 
lation which  is  contrary  to  the  plain  principles  of  reason 
and  the  evident  knowledge  the  mind  has  of  its  own 
clear  and  distinct  ideas,  there  reason  must  be  hearkened 
to  as  to  a  matter  within  its  province,  since  a  man  can 
never  have  so  certain  a  knowledge  that  a  proposition 
which  contradicts  the  clear  principles  and  evidence  of 
his  own  knowledge  was  divinely  revealed,  or  that  he 
understands  the  words  rightly,  ...  as  he  has  that  the 
contrary  is  true,  and  so  is  bound  to  consider  and 
judge  of  it  as  a  matter  of  reason,  and  not  to  swallow  it 
without  examination  as  a  matter  of  faith."*  And 
again,  "Faith  can  never  convince  us  of  any  thing  that 
contradicts  our  knowledge."  Locke  did  not  apply  this 
proposition  to  the  Bible.  The  revelations  he  had  in  liis 
mind  were  pretended  revelations  claimed  by  enthusiasts 

*  Essay  on  Human  Understanding,  book  iv.  chap.  18. 


THE  CAUSE  OP  REASON  THAT  OF  FAITH.    203 

independent  of  the  Church.  In  those  days,  when  criti- 
cism was  yet  in  its  infancy,  and  discrepancies  undetected 
which  are  now  familiar,  the  Bible  was  either  received 
as  a  whole  or  rejected  as  a  whole,  and  Locke  was  of 
those  who  received  it.  But  the  application  of  this 
great  principle  to  Scripture  is  obvious,  and  the  bibliola- 
try  which  refuses  so  to  apply  it  —  which  refuses  to 
discriminate  between  different  degrees  of  authority  and 
authenticity,  between  genuine  and  spurious,  between 
poetry  and  history  —  is  not  of  the  nature  of  faith,  but 
of  fetichism. 

This  sluggish  acquiescence  in  something  external, 
this  slavish  reliance  on  a  letter,  an  institution,  on  the 
"says  so"  of  an  individual,  is  precisely  the  state  of 
mind  to  which  the  name  and  credit  of  faith  are  com- 
monly assigned.  This  is  the  kind  of  faith  which  the 
Church  of  Rome  demands  and  fosters.  The  entire 
surrender  of  the  understanding  to  a  symbol,  of  the  will 
to  a  priest,  is  the  highest  virtue  in  that  communion. 
The  noblest  saint  in  the  feminine  calendar,  the  holy 
and  beautiful  Elizabeth  of  Thiiringen,  though  clothed 
with  every  virtue  which  could  merit  a  seat  among  the 
saints  in  any  age  or  Church,  was  chiefly  lauded  by  her 
judges  for  unqualified  submission  to  her  confessor, 
even  to  the  extent  of  renouncing,  at  his  dictation,  her 
works  of  love.  Her  only  weakness  was  esteemed  her 
supreme  merit.  An  intelligent  female  convert  to  Ro- 
manism in  our  own  land  was  asked  how  her  disciplined 
mind  could  reconcile  itself  with  certain  doscmas  of  her 
new  confession.  The  answer  was,  "I  do  not  exercise 
my  mind  upon  them ;  I  suspend  my  reason  on  all 
questions    on   which   the   Church   has   pronounced   its 


204  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

decision."  Romanizing  Christians  may  see  in  this  sus- 
pense of  reason  the  crowning  triumph  of  consum- 
mate faith.  I  can  see  in  it  only  the  dying  confession 
of  faith  in  arjticulo  Tiiortis^  the  religion  of  despair,  — 
despair  of  the  inner  light,  despair  of  divine  guidance, 
and  the  Holy  Ghost.  Such  confessions  throw  a  ghastly 
light  on  the  true  nature  of  such  conversions,  —  on  all 
conversions  from  the  light  of  reason  and  rational  faith 
to  obsolete  dogma  and  ancient  night.  Suspense  of 
reason  !  the  history  of  Christendom  for  twelve  centuries 
is  expressed  by  that  phrase.  "  And  the  times  of  that 
ignorance  God  winked  at,  but  now  commandeth  all 
men  everywhere  to  repent."  Whatever  merit  blind 
acquiescence  in  blind  authority  might  once  have  had, 
it  has  none  now,  and  will  find  no  lono;er  a  connivino; 
God  in  the  pro\;idential  eclipse  of  the  gospel.  The 
light  is  there  :  if  any  prefer  the  darkness  to  the  light, 
the  darkness  they  have  chosen  is  their  doom.  "  For  it 
is  impossible  for  those  who  were  once  enlightened,  and 
have  tasted  the  heavenly  gift,  and  were  made  partakers 
of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  have  tasted  the  good  word  of 
God  and  the  powers  of  the  world  to  come,  if  they  shall 
fall  away,  to  renew  them  again,  seeing  they  crucify  to 
themselves  the  Son  of  God  afresh  and  put  him  to  an 
open  shame." 

It  is  not  a  healthy  and  robust  faith  that  seeks  refuge 
in  authority,  and  flies  for  shelter  to  an  antiquated  creed. 
In  the  beginning  of  the  Anglican  Tractarian  movement, 
one  of  its  leaders  complained  that  the  "  Church  had  too 
much  light."  Following  this  hint,  the  more  consistent 
Tractarians  turned  their  backs  on  such  light  as  they 
had,  and,  retreating  beneath  the  shadow  of  the  Church 


THE   CAUSE   OF  REASON  THAT  OF  FAITH.  205 

of  Rome,  escaped  the  annoyance  altogether.  It  is  the 
only  safe  course  for  men  who  do  not  wish  to  see  what 
they  believe.  Let  the  blind  follow  the  blind  into  con- 
genial darkness,  and  let  the  seeing  gratefully  accept  the 
light.  It  is  not  complete  illumination  as  yet ;  it  is  not 
co-extensive  with  all  our  belief.  There  are  many  dark 
passages  in  life  and  religion,  where  we  must  walk  by 
faith,  not  by  sight.  We  must  walk  by  faith  in  a  vast 
number  of  cases,  w^hatever  church  we  walk  in,  and 
though  we  walk  in  no  church  at  all.  Man  is  a  poor 
creature  if  he  does  not  believe  a  great  deal  more  than 
he  sees.  Nevertheless,  we  will  walk  by  sight,  even  in 
religion,  where  we  have  sight  to  walk  by.  We  will 
not  shut  our  eyes  for  the  mere  pleasure  of  groping  in 
the  dark.  We  will  thankfully  accept  the  light  we  have, 
and  strive  for  more. 

And  is  there,  then,  no  infallible  authority  in  religion? 
You  take  from  us  first  the  infallible  Church,  and  now 
the  infallible  Book.  To  what  oracle  then  shall  we  flee 
for  safe  conduct  in  the  controverted  questions  of  theol- 
ogy, —  for  safe  deliverance  from  the  agonies  of  doubt 
and  the  endless  mazes  of  the  mind?  To  the  question, 
What  is  Truth?  —  the  supreme  question  of  the  soul,  on 
which  hang  the  issues  of  everlasting  life,  — Is  there  no 
expressed  and  unmistakable  answer  of  God,  on  which 
the  soul  may  repose  with  the  certainty  of  infallible 
truth,  and  there  end  the  bewildering  quest?  No  infal- 
lible oracle  out  of  the  breast.  The  oracle  within,  the 
answer  of  the  Holy  Ghost  which  the  listening,  waiting 
soul  receives  in  the  innermost  recesses  of  her  own  con- 
sciousness, is  for  each  individual  the  high  tribunal  of 
last  appeal.     However  desii-able  it  may  seem  that  infal- 


206  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

lible  guidance  from  without  should  have  been  vouch- 
safed to  our  perplexity,  however  we  may  covet  it  and 
sigh  for  it,  it  has  not  been  so  ordained.  We  have  not 
been  so  constituted  as  to  see  infallibly  or  to  act  infal- 
libly. And  perhaps,  if  we  duly  consider  the  uses  of 
the  world  and  the  needs  of  the  soul,  we  shall  cease  to 
think  it  desirable,  shall  see  it  to  be  incompatible  with 
moral  discipline  and  moral  growth.  For  what,  after 
all,  would  be  the  difference  between  infallible  guidance 
and  mechanical  guidance?  The  theory  of  infallibility 
is  at  variance  with  all  the  known  methods  of  divine 
Providence.  God  does  not  act  on  the  mind  mechan- 
ically, but  morally.  He  does  not  compel  belief  by 
absolute  certitude,  but  persuades  belief  by  fair  proba- 
bility; the  individual  mind,  with  its  idiosyncrasies, 
being  one  of  the  factors  by  which  that  probability  is 
constituted.  It  is  very  essential  to  our  growth,  as 
individuals  and  as  society,  that  we  should  not  have 
certainty,  —  that  faith  should  be  elective,  and  not  the 
inevitable  result  of  evidence  acting  with  mechanical 
compulsion  on  the  mind.  It  is  the  liability  to  error 
and  the  experience  of  error  that  make  us  human,  that 
furnish  to  human  nature  the  topics  of  discipline  and 
the  means  of  growth.  The  better  part  of  truth  is  the 
search  after  truth.  Lessing  was  right  in  his  preference 
when  he  said,  "If  God  should  offer  me  the  absolute 
truth  in  the  right  hand,  and  the  love  and  pursuit  of 
truth  in  the  left,  I  should  choose  the  left."  The  abso- 
lute is  not  for  man. 

The  cause  of  reason  is  the  cause  of  faith.  In  affirm- 
ing this,  I  but  re-affirm  what  the  wisest  and  devoutest 
of  the  Church  have  always   maintained.      But  indeed 


THE  CAUSE  OF  REASON  THAT  OF  FAITH.  207 

the  proposition  is  a  necessary  inference  from  the  nature 
of  man ;  it  lies  in  the  very  constitution  of  the  human 
mind.  Reason  and  faith  have  one  interest,  —  Truth. 
They  differ  only  in  their  mode  of  apprehension.  Rea- 
son has  the  clearer  discernment ;  faith,  the  stronger  hold. 
Faith  has  the  ampler  discourse ;  reason,  the  more  accu- 
rate survey.  Faith,  conversant  with  matters  beyond 
the  scope  of  reason,  "is  the  evidence  of  things  not 
seen."  But  reason,  so  far  as  it  reaches,  is  sight. 
Reason,  therefore,  so  far  as  it  reaches,  is  the  necessary 
corrective  of  faith.  Faith  is  determined  by  accidental 
causes ;  it  has  no  necessary  relation  to  the  truth.  A 
strong  persuasion,  but  no  objective  certitude.  It  em- 
braces error  as  well  as  truth,  and  embraces  it  with 
equal  affection.  But  reason,  in  its  proper  nature,  is 
identical  with  the  actual  truth  of  things,  that  is,  their 
relation  in  the  mind  of  God;  and  human  reason,  on 
any  intelligible  theory  of  God's  government,  must  be  a 
continual  approximation  to  absolute  truth.  The  faith 
of  the  Brahmin  in  the  ten  incarnations  of  Vishnu,  or 
that  of  the  Catholic  in  the  Transubstantiation  of  the 
"elements,"  or  the  Tri-personality,  is  as  strong  as  that 
of  the  Protestant  Christian  in  the  unity  and  providence 
of  God.  But  the  relation  of  reason  to  these  different 
dogmas  is  very  different.  The  former  demand  a  sus- 
pense of  reason  ;  the  latter,  if  not  an  original  perception 
of  reason,  is  at  least  an  invitation  to  reason  to  follow 
and  find. 

An  original  perception  of  reason,  it  is  not.  Nor  are 
any  of  the  primary  and  fundamental  truths  of  religion 
original  perceptions  of  the  mind.  And  here  let  me 
say,  that,  in  advocating  the  cause  of  reason  in  religion, 


208  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

I  am  far  from  maintaining  the  sufficiency  of  reason  as 
a  substitute  for  faith  in  spiritual  things.  On  the  con- 
trary, it  is  my  belief  that  reason  in  its  own  original 
capacity  and  function  has  no  knowledge  of  spiritual 
truth,  not  even  of  the  first  and  fundamental  truth  of 
religion,  the  being  of  God.  "Natural  theology"  sup- 
poses that  this  and  kindred  truths  are  reasoned  out,  or 
may  be  reasoned  out,  by  a  process  of  induction,  in  the 
same  way  that  the  truths  of  astronomy  were  reasoned 
out  by  Kepler  and  Newton  and  Laplace  ;  that  the  being 
of  God  is  as  much  an  inference  from  the  facts  and 
processes  of  nature,  as  the  earth's  motion  is  an  inference 
from  the  oscillations  of  the  pendulum  and  the  changes 
in  the  sky ;  that  the  inference  is  inevitable,  and  would 
have  been  reached  by  competent  logicians  without  the 
light  of  revelation  and  without  the  idea  of  God  pre- 
existing ill  the  unind.  I  do  not  believe  in  any  such 
induction.  I  deny  the  logical  sequence  in  that  argu- 
ment. I  deny  the  logical  soundness  of  that  conclu- 
sion. I  deny  the  ability  of  the  human  intellect  to 
construct  that  ladder,  whose  foot  being  grounded  in 
irrefragable  axiom,  and  its  steps  all  laid  in  dialectic 
continuity,  the  topmost  round  thereof  shall  lift  the 
climbino:  intellect  into  vision  of  the  Godhead.  Between 
the  last  truth  which  the  human  intellect  can  reach  by 
leofitimate  induction  and  the  beino^  of  God  there  will 

ever  lie  — 

"  Deserts  of  vast  eternity." 

Not  by  that  process  did  any  soul  yet  arrive  at  that 
transcendent  truth ;  not  from  beneath,  but  from  above, 
—  not  by  intellectual  escalade,  but  by  heavenly  conde- 
scension, —  comes  the  idea  of  God,  even  by  the  con- 


THE  CAUSE  OF  REASON  THAT  OF  FAITH.    209 

lescending  Word,  "of  the  Eternal  co-eternal  beam," 
ihe  fountain  of  all  our  ideas  of  spiritual  things,  the  well 
from  which  reason  draws,  but  not  to  be  confounded 
with  it.  What  is  true  of  the  beins^  of  God  is  true  of 
all  kindred  verities.  All  our  perceptions  of  the  primary 
truths  of  religion  are  products  of  divine  illumination. 
All  relisrion  that  is  true  is  revealed  reliijion.  But 
revelation  is  education, — education  of  the  reason  as 
well  as  of  the  heart.  What  reason  in  its  own  orioinal 
capacity  could  not  discover,  it  may  come  by  divine 
education  to  apprehend,  and  even,  in  a  negative  way, 
to  substantiate,  by  removing  objections  and  showing 
the  absurdity  of  a  contrary  supposition.  The  office  of 
reason  in  reUgion  is  not  discovery,  but  verification  and 
purification.  Its  function  is  to  make  and  keep  religion 
true  and  pure,  by  eliminating  from  the  code  of  elemen- 
tal beliefs  the  human  additions  and  corruptions  that 
have  gathered  around  it.  This,  faith  cannot  do  :  faith 
can  only  embrace,  not  discriminate,  and,  for  want  of 
discrimination,  may  soon  degenerate  and  turn  to  mon- 
strous superstition,  as  in  all  historical  dispensations  of 
religion  it  has  done.  Faith  is  no  critic.  In  its  own 
nature  and  proper  function,  it  chooses  nothing  and 
refuses  nothing.  Impartial  and  impolitic,  it  befriends 
itself  with  every  enormity  of  the  human  mind.  Noth- 
ing is  too  absurd  for  it, — nothing  too  hateful  or  too 
cruel.  The  wildest  idolatries,  the  most  brutal  fetich- 
ism,  the  direst  self-torture,  the  most  ferocious  persecu- 
tion, Phoenician  lust-oflferings,  Aztec  blood-oiferings, 
Egyptian  magic,  Hindu  suttees  and  gymnosophism, 
Christian    inquisitions    and    immolations,    demonology 

and  witchcraft,  — these  things  are  as  natural  to  faith  as 

14 


210  RATIONAL    CHRISTIANITY. 

belief  in  the  Holy  Ghost,  and,  but  for  the  veto  of  edu- 
cated reason,  as  near  to  it  now  and  here  as  in  any  land 
or  time.  It  lies  in  all  of  us  so  to  believe  and  so  to  act : 
thanks  to  our  rationalism,  we  think  and  act  otherwise. 

I  say,  then,  that  the  cause  of  reason  is  the  cause  of 
faith,  because  the  corrective  of  faith.  Each  is  the 
other's  complement.  Eeason  requires  the  nutriment 
and  impulse  furnished  by  faith.  Faith  requires  the 
discreet  elaboration  of  reason.  The  one  has  the  sub- 
stance ;  the  other,  the  form.  Reason  alone  would  give 
us  a  world  without  a  God,  bodies  without  spirits,  earth 
without  heaven,  a  day  without  a  morrow,  a  way  with- 
out a  goal.  Faith  alone  would  give  us  a  pantheon  of 
questionable  divinities,  a  pandemonium  of  unquestion- 
able fiends,  an  overshadowing  theocracy  for  civil  rule, 
a  dispensation  of  dark  ages  without  end. 

From  the  genius  of  the  gospel,  no  less  than  the  con- 
stitution of  the  human  mind,  I  infer  the  right  of  reason 
in  religion.  Christianity  is  professedly  a  revelation  of 
reason.  The  first  systematic  statement  of  it  by  a  com- 
petent witness  aflSrms  this,  and  justifies  rationalism  in 
one  word.  And  that  word  is  the  Word, — in  the 
original  tongue  a  synonyme  for  Reason.  "In  the  be- 
ginning was  the  Word  (or  Reason) ,  and  God  was  the 
Word,"  and  in  Christ  was  the  Word  "made  flesh." 
The  eternal  Reason  revealed  in  the  human ;  not  differ- 
ent from  the  human  in  kind,  for  it  comes  to  "his  own," 
and  is  "the  lisrht  that  lis^hteth  all  who  '•ome  into  the 
world."  St.  Paul,  though  disclaiming,  as  "carnal 
wisdom "  and  "  the  wisdom  of  this  world,"  the  philo- 
sophic prepossessions  of  his  time,  is  himself  the  subtlest 


THE   CAUSE   OF  REASON  THAT  OF  FAITH.  211 

of  reasoners,  —  an  inveterate  rationalist,  never  more 
thoroughly  in  his  element  than  when  arguing  the  claims 
of  Christianity  on  psychological  grounds,  or  boldly 
rationalizing  the  Old  Testament  to  rebut  the  scruples 
of  his  countrymen.  The  authorities  at  Jerusalem  — 
Bishop  James  and  Peter  and  the  rest  —  stood  aghast, 
and  no  wonder,  at  this  "  terrible  child "  of  their  com- 
munion ;  they  spoke  doubtfully  of  "  our  beloved  brother 
Paul "  and  the  "  hard  things "  in  his  Epistles ;  they 
could  not  quote  him  without  a  caution ;  but  who  at 
this  day  doubts  that  Paul's  idea  was  nearer  the  mind 
of  Christ  than  the  views  of  his  Judaizins:  critics? 
Providence  adopted  it ;  it  carried  the  age ;  Jewish 
Christianity  decreased.  Liberal  Christianity  increased, 
—  and  will  increase. 

The  history  of  a  religion,  like  that  of  a  nation  or  an 
individual,  is  its  verdict,  the  test  of  its  proper  quality, 
a  revelation  of  its  innermost  idea,  a  public  confession 
of  the  meaning  which  lay  in  its  germ  and  constitution. 
Try  Christianity  by  this  test ;  compare  it  with  the  elder 
rell2:ions,  or  its  vouno;er  sister,  Islam.  What  is  tlie 
characteristic  fruit  of  Christian  history?  One  fruit  is 
humanity ;  another,  equally  generic,  is  rationalism. 
Not  intellectual  life  as  such,  for  Hinduism  has  devel- 
oped that,  and  developed  it  more  abundantly ;  but  that 
form  of  Intellectual  life  in  which  reason  is  the  dominant 
element,  —  the  application  of  reason  to  nature  and 
society,  to  art  and  literature  and  life.  For  proofs  of 
this  assertion  we  have  but  to  look  around  us.  This 
Protestant  Christendom,  with  its  schools  and  its  arts, 
its  traffic  and  its  liberties,  comprising  whatever  is  pro- 
gressive and  humane  in  the  present,  and  containing  — 


212  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

who  can  doubt  it  ?  —  the  future  of  humanity,  the  moral 
destinies  of  this  planet,  —  this  embodied,  practical, 
beneficent  rationalism  I  claim  as  the  genuine  fruit  of 
the  gospel,  —  humanity's  late  but  liow  significant  an- 
swer to  the  condescending  Word  for  whose  communica- 
tion in  old  Judaea  the  heavens  were  opened. 

The  prominent  feature  of  Christian  civilization  is 
science,  that  new  estate  of  the  social  realm  which  never 
before,  since  the  world  began,  attained  the  consequence 
and  moment  it  now  has  in  the  scale  of  the  forces  that 
govern  society.  Science  is  sometimes  found  in  opposi- 
tion to  the  Church,  which  accordingly  rages  against 
it,  —  the  old  with  bull  and  ban,  the  new  with  the  cry 
of  "infidelity,"  and  both  with  the  same  result.  As  I 
view  it,  the  denial  of  God's  light  and  truth  in  human 
reason  implies  a  far  deeper  infidelity  than  any  question- 
ing of  the  truth  of  a  letter. 

It  is  a  losing  contest  which  theology  wages  against 
reason  and  fact.  In  striking  at  science,  the  Church  but 
dashes  her  ineffectual  arm  against  the  thick  bosses  of 
the  Almighty's  shield.  For  what  is  science?  It  is 
simply  the  truth  of  things,  i.e.  the  truth  of  God,  and 
as  surely  a  revelation  of  God  as  the  gospel,  —  a  reve- 
lation to  reason  of  things  mundane,  as  the  gospel  is  a 
revelation  to  faith  of  things  supermundane.  The  two 
revelations  from  one  God  can  never  really  conflict. 
Whatever  of  seeming  conflict  there  may  be  is  the  fault 
of  the  Church,  which  vainly  opposes  tradition  to  dem- 
onstration, and  confounds  the  gospel  with  the  Bible, 
which  is  only  a  witness  of  the  gospel.  If  the  demon- 
strated facts  of  science  shall  be  found  to  contradict  the 
text,  the  text  must  give  way,  and  no  harm  is  done  to 


THE  CAUSE   OF   REASON  THAT   OF   FAITH.  213 

religion  except  in  the  fond  conceit  which  identifies  the 
cause  of  Christianity  with  the  infallibility  of  a  letter, 
and  stakes  that  cause  on  that  infallibility. 

Moreover,  in  contending  against  science,  the  church 
denies  and  rejects  her  own.  For  science,  after  all,  is 
the  offspring  of  the  Church.  Born  in  monkish  cells,  the 
foundling  of  religious  houses  vowed  to  Christ  and  the 
saints,  nursed  by  cowled  friars,  cradled  among  cruci- 
fixes and  breviaries,  with  men  like  Raymond  Lully  and 
Roger  Bacon  and  Albert  the  Great  for  its  sponsors,  the 
child  was  baptized  with  the  Holy  Ghost ;  and  though  in 
her  maturity  electing  another  path  than  that  anticipated 
by  her  spiritual  fathers,  though  adopting  lay  methods 
and  associations,  she  has  never  belied  the  divine  anoint- 
ing, nor  betrayed  her  sacred  trust.  For  science,  too,  is 
a  minister  of  God,  —  an  evangelist  whose  mission  is  to 
"  show  us  the  Father  "  and  rec^enerate  the  world. 
With  no  conscious  God  in  her  perceptions,  she  yet 
refreshes  and  expands  the  idea  of  God  by  new  revela- 
tions of  the  heights  and  deeps  and  infinite  riches  of  the 
wondrous  All.  With  no  moral  sensibility  of  her  own, 
she  yet  deepens  the  sense  of  obligation  in  man,  and 
solemnizes  human  life  by  showing  how  most  exact  ie 
nature's  frame  in  which  that  life  is  set,  where  the  severe 
and  geometrizing  God  suffers  no  transgression  and  no 
defect  that  is  not  compensated  by  its  just  equivalent,  — 
where  every  law  is  self- executing,  and  the  wildest 
excesses  —  the  meteor's  path,  the  earthquake's  brief 
spasm,  the  comet's  long  but  measured  furlough  —  are 
all  minutely  prescribed  and  timed.  With  no  human 
sympathy  in  those  eyes  that  look  creation  through,  she 
yet  strengthens  the  bonds  of  love  by  a  wiser  adjustment 


214  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

of  human  relations,  by  multiplying  means  of  beneficence 
and  extending  o];)portunities  of  good.  With  no  charity 
in  her  aim,  she  yet  evangelizes  the  world  by  closer 
commerce  of  man  with  man,  by  furnishing  wings  to 
missionary  zeal,  and  implements  to  charity,  by  dissolving 
the  rocky  barriers  of  prescription,  by  developing  the 
vast  resources  of  nature  for  the  comfort  and  relief  of 
the  suffering,  and  the  edification  of  human  kind. 

Does  theology  understand,  does  the  Church  suspect, 
what  a  reign  this  is  which  is  now  establishing  its  throne 
among  us,  and  stretching  its  sceptre  alike  over  priest 
and  people?  A  veritable  kingdom  of  God,  because  a 
kingdom  of  light  and  truth.  Who  hath  eyes  to  see, 
let  him  see  how  old  things  are  passing  away,  and  all 
things  are  becoming  new.  Let  the  clergy  lift  up  their 
eyes,  and  welcome  the  prophet  whom  nature  vouches, 
the  fellow-laborer  who  also  cometh  in  the  name  of  the 
Lord.  Let  the  Church  make  haste  to  acknowledge 
the  credentials  which  bear  the  seal  of  sovereign  and 
puissant  fact,  —  the  plenipotentiary  of  Him  "  who  lay- 
eth  the  beams  of  his  chambers  in  the  waters  and  walketh 
upon  the  wings  of  the  wind."  And  let  the  Church 
understand  that  she  must  either  accommodate  herself 
to  the  new  dispensation,  or  else  go  down  before  it,  as 
the  temples  of  heathendom  went  down  when  the  waters 
of  Christian  baptism  prevailed  on  the  earth. 

Let  there  be  no  strife  between  theology  and  science  : 
there  need  be  none.  The  gospel  of  Christ  and  the 
gospel  of  science  have  essentially  one  mission.  The 
methods  differ ;  the  end  is  the  same.  "  Glory  to  God 
in  the  highest,  and  on  earth  peace  and  good-will  toward 
men,"  was  the  mission  divinely  proclaimed  for  the  one: 


THE   CAUSE   OF  REASON   THAT   OF  FAITH.  215 

to  minister  to  "  the  glory  of  God  and  the  relief  of 
man's  estate "  was  the  callins^  which  Encrland's  oreat 
Chancellor,  its  own  high  prophet,  prescribed  for  the 
other. 

If  the  cause  of  reason  is  the  cause  of  faith,  then  it  is 
also  the  cause  of  the  Church,  and  then  theology  may 
not  dispense  with  its  aid  in  constructing  the  doctrinal 
fabrics  in  which  the  faith  of  the  Church  is  to   dwell. 
For  want  of  the  counsel  and  concurrence  of  reason  in 
time  past,  theology  hath   builded  her  house  in  vain. 
Showy  and  imposing  structures  they  were,  which  housed 
the  faith  of  the  fathers,  the  Gothic  style  of  theology,  — 
those  groined  and  carved  and  turreted  systems  of  di- 
vinity,—  but   without    internal    coherence,    having    no 
sure  principle  of  support  in  themselves,  requiring  stays 
and  props  from  without,  and  needing  constant  repair. 
They  resemble  the  material  edifices,  their  counterparts, 
the  churches  of  the  Middle  Age,  —  that  much-vaunted 
but  unsubstantial  Gothic  architecture,  as  characterized 
by  Michelet,  and  by  him  contrasted  with  the  scientific 
building  of  Florentine  art.     "The  Gothic  architecture," 
he  says,  "  made  great  pretensions ;  it  was  ostentatious 
of  calculation  and  numbers.     The  sacred  number  three, 
the  mysterious   number   seven,   were    carefully  repro- 
duced, either  in  themselves  or  their  multiples,  in  every 
part  of   these   churches.  .  .  .  Build    by   three    and    by 
seven,  and  your  church  will  be  solid."  —  "But  why," 
then,  continues  he,  "this  army  of  buttresses  surround- 
ing it,  these  enormous  stays,  this  everlasting  scaffolding, 
which  the  mason  seems  to  have  forgotten  to  take  away  ?  " 
The  very  ornamentation  conceals   iron   clamps  which 


216  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

deoxidate  continually,  and  have  to  be  replaced.  "A 
really  robust  edifice  would  cover  and  enclose  Its  own 
supports,  the  guaranties  of  Its  perpetuity.  But  the 
Gothic,  which  leaves  these  essential  members  to  chance, 
is  constitutionally  sickly,  necessitating  the  maintenance 
of  a  population  of  doctors ;  for  so  I  call  those  little 
hamlets  of  masons  which  I  see  established  at  the  foot 
of  these  edifices,  —  the  hereditary  repairers  of  the  fra- 
gile creation  which  is  mended  so  constantly,  piece  by 
piece,  that,  after  two  or  three  hundred  years,  not  a  stone 
perhaps  of  the  original  structure  remains." 

Brunelleschi,  "  the  sceptic,  the  denier  of  Gothic 
architecture,"  first  Protestant  in  art,  when  intrusted 
with  the  completion  of  the  cathedral  at  Florence,  pro- 
ceeded on  a  different  plan.  He  went  scientifically  to 
work :  he  studied  the  strength  of  materials,  the  princi- 
ples of  form,  the  proportion  of  part  to  part,  and  so 
built  the  Maria  del  Flore.  "  Without  carpentry,  with- 
out prop  or  buttress,  without  the  succor  of  any  exterior 
support,  the  colossal  church  rose  simply,  naturally,  as 
a  strong  man  rises  in  the  morning  from  his  bed,  without 
staff  or  crutch ;  and  with  terror  the  people  saw  the 
hardy  calculator  place  upon  its  head  a  ponderous  mar- 
ble hat, — the  lantern.  He  laughed  at  their  fears, 
assuring  them  that  this  new  weight  would  only  add  to 
its  solidity." 

And  thus,  says  the  historian,  '^was  laid  the  corner- 
stone of  the  new  era,  —  the  permanent  protest  against 
the  halting  art  of  the  Middle  Age,  the  first  but  triumph- 
ant essay  of  a  serious  structure  self-sustained,  being 
based  on  calculation  and  on  the  authority  of  reason. 
Art  and  reason  reconciled,   that  is  the  new  era,  the 


THE  CAUSE  OF  REASON  THAT  OF  FAITH.  217 

maiTiage  of  the  beautiful  with  the  true.  .  .  .  ^  Where 
will  you  be  buried?'  they  asked  Michel  Angelo,  who 
himself  had  just  completed  St.  Peter's  at  Rome. 
*  Where  I  may  for  ever  contemplate  the  immortal  work 
of  Brunelleschi.' " 

What  the  Duomo  at  Florence,  what  a  really  scien- 
tific building,  is  to  a  crumbling  Gothic  edifice,  such  is 
a  rational  theology  to  the  rotten  systems  of  the  past. 
As  that,  in  the  language  just  quoted,  is  the  marriage 
of  the  beautiful  with  the  true,  so  this  is  the  marriage  of 
the  holy  with  the  true,  —  the  marriage  of  Faith  and 
Reason. 

It  will  be  understood,  that  in  arguing  this  cause,  in 
contending  for  the  faithful  and  fearless  application  of 
reason  to  religion,  I  am  advocating  a  principle,  not  a 
particular  view  or  result.  I  have  wished  to  contribute 
something  to  do  away  the  false  association  of  rationalism 
with  unbelief,  as  if  the  sole  function  of  reason  were  to 
deny,  and  negation  of  existing  beliefs,  its  legitimate 
fruit.  The  rationalist  is  not  necessarily  one  who  rejects 
the  miraculous  element  in  the  gospel  history,  and 
denies  the  exceptionally  divine  in  Christ.  For  my  own 
part,  I  believe  both,  and  claim  to  do  so  on  rationalistic 
grounds.  I  claim  to  have  reached  these  conclusions  by 
no  bias  of  authority  or  ecclesiastical  tradition,  but  by 
rational  criticism  applied  to  the  facts  in  the  case.  Tt 
may  be  a  limitation  in  me  to  believe  thus ;  then  it  is  a 
limitation  of  my  faculty,  and  not  an  intentional  limita- 
tion of  the  principle  I  am  advocating.  I  demand  an 
unlimited  application  of  that  principle ;  and  I  firmly  . 
believe  that  the  full  and  conscientious  and  persistent  use 


218  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

of  reason  in  religion  will  restore  and  confimi  much  that 
the  partial  use  has  discredited  and  disturbed.  It  is  not, 
as  I  judge,  the  maturity  and  strength  of  reason  that 
repudiates  those  truths,  but  its  rawness  and  weakness, 
—  its  enslavement  to  negative  experience,  and  inability 
to  construe  the  arc  of  which  the  seemingly  straight  line 
of  our  experience  constitutes  so  small  a  segment.  That 
is  not  a  pleasing  view  of  divine  operations,  or  of  hu- 
man things,  which  supposes  the  Universe  and  Provi- 
dence bound  to  an  everlasting  mechanical  sequence  of 
events ;  it  is  not  one  which  will  permanently  satisfy 
human  reason.  The  virtual  atheism  of  such  a  view  no 
formal  acknowledgment  of  a  great  First  Cause  can 
redeem.  Reason  demands,  and  true  theism  supposes, 
a  present  as  well  as  a  former  God,  —  a  God  co-ordinate 
with  and  exceeding  creation,  —  a  God  untrammelled  by 
custom,  or  what  we  call  law,  which  is  merely  a  human 
form  of  thought,  and  not  an  objective  reality.  This 
regular  sequence  of  events,  which  seems  so  necessary, 
so  absolute  to  our  mundane  experience,  may  be  in  the 
infinite  consciousness  of  God  a  free  and  incalculable 
spontaneity.  If  miracles,  as  I  believe,  are  not  to  be 
eliminated  from  the  canon  of  historical  facts,  then  sci- 
ence, I  doubt  not,  will  come  to  know  them,  and  reason 
will  rationalize  them  without  impairing  their  miraculous 
character. 

I  am  far  from  maintaining  that  Christianity  must 
stand  or  fall  with  the  belief  in  miracles  ;  but  I  do  main- 
tain that  Christian  churches,  as  organized  bodies  of 
believers,  must  stand  or  fall  with  the  Christian  con- 
fession,—  that  is,  the  confession  of  Christ  as  divinely 
human  Master   and   Head.     Men   of  wit   and   spirit. 


THE   CAUSE   OF  REASON  THAT  OF  FAITH.  219 

earnest  and  able  speakers,  outside  of  that  confession, 
will  not  want  hearers,  and  may  gather  congregations 
around  them  which  shall  wait  on  their  stated  ministry. 
But  such  congregations,  so  far  from  being  Christian 
churches,  may  even  come  to  assume  an  attitude  of  open 
and  avowed  hostility  to  Christian  doctrine  and  life. 
Things  exist  in  this  world  by  distinction  one  from 
another.  Enlarge  as  you  will  the  idea  and  scope  of  a 
church,  there  must  be  somewhere,  whether  stated  or 
not  in  any  formal  symbol,  a  line  which  defines  it,  and 
separates  those  who  are  in  it  from  those  who  are  with- 
out. The  scope  of  the  Liberal  Church  is  large  ;  but 
every  thing  and  everybody  cannot  be  embraced  in  it. 
The  Christian  confession  is  its  boundary-line,  within 
which  alone  it  can  do  the  work  whicli  Providence  has 
given  it  to  do.  Tliis  boundary-line  I  have  all  along 
assumed.  The  distinction  involved  in  the  Christian 
confession  is  organic  and  vital ;  its  abolition  would  be 
the  dissolution  of  the  ecclesiastical  world  and  the  end 
of  Christendom. 

One  thing  more.  In  pleading  the  cause  of  rational- 
ism, I  am  supposing  the  use  of  reason  in  religion  to  be 
a  conscientious  use,  and  the  critical  investioation  to 
be  conducted  in  a  spirit  of  Christian  reverence  and  love. 
The  most  searching  investigation,  actuated  by  ill-will 
to  the  Christian  cause,  is  no  more  secure  of  the  truth 
than  blind  acquiescence  or  blind  infidelity.  A  negative 
and  destructive  spirit  will  find  many  things  doubtful 
and  many  tilings  false  which  a  pious  and  affirmative 
spirit,  exercising  an  equal  measure  of  critical  acumen, 
would  approve  and  confirm.      Criticism  is  not  all  nega- 


220  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

tive ;  nor  does  Biblical  criticism  in  Germany,  as  many 
suppose,  pursue  an  arbitrary,  wilful  course,  minded 
only  to  destroy,  and  never  to  rest  till  the  last  support 
be  removed  from  the  New  Testament,  and  every  vestige 
of  documentary  evidence  for  the  truth  of  the  Gospel 
done  away.  On  the  contrary,  destructive  criticism, 
not  arbitrary  but  scientific  in  its  method,  and  generally 
unbiassed  in  its  motive,  has  already  reached  its  limit. 
The  work  of  negation  —  an  honest  and  necessary  work 
—  has  been  accomplished.  Little  more,  I  conceive,  re- 
mains to  be  discovered  or  propounded  in  that  direction. 
Criticism  has  done  its  uttermost  with  the  New  Testa- 
ment. What  is  now  left  standing  is  likely  to  stand. 
What  the  microscopic  eye  and  remorseless  knife  of 
Strauss  and  Baur  have  spared,  may  be  presumed  invul- 
nerable. And  what  is  it  that  is  thus  secured  to  us? 
Enough  in  those  Epistles  of  Paul,  whose  genuineness 
remains  unquestioned,  to  establish  the  great  facts  of 
the  doctrine  of  Christ  and  the  gospel  story.  Enough 
to  substantiate,  to  fair  and  rational  criticism,  the  crown- 
ing fact  of  the  Resurrection.  I  do  not  say  to  demon- 
strate beyond  doubt  or  cavil,  but  to  make  it  reasonably 
certain  to  reasonable  minds.  In  spite  of  all  cavil  and 
evasive  interpretation,  this  fact  must  stand,  and  with 
it  the  miraculous  gospel,  —  a  divine  interpolation  of 
the  Spirit  in  the  secular  text  of  history. 

Destructive  criticism  has  done  its  work :  henceforth 
we  may  expect  that  the  work  of  criticism  will  be  mainly 
constructive  and  restorative.  Who  can  say  how  much 
may  be  accomplished  in  that  line?  Already  signs  of 
agreement  are  perceptible  among  competent  critics  of 
different  scliools.     Some  approximation  has  been  made 


THE   CAUSE   OF  REASON   THAT   OF   FAITH.  221 

to  settlement  of  controverted  questions,  that  is,  to  cer- 
tainty in  Biblical  theology.  This  agreement  among 
theolo2:ians  cannot  fail  to  exercise  a  reconcilino;  influ- 
ence  on  Christian  sects,  and  will  tend  to  abolish  the 
boundary-lines  which  now  divide  the  Christian  world. 
One  need  not  despair  of  a  Catholic  Church  in  that  sense 
in  which  alone  Catholicism  is  possible  or  desirable. 
We  do  not  expect  or  desire  complete  uniformity  of 
administration  and  rite,  or  even  of  doctrinal  type. 
There  must  always  be  differences  of  administration,  of 
worship,  and  of  doctrine.  Catholicism  does  not  consist 
in  uniformity  of  articles,  but  in  unity  of  spirit,  —  not  in 
a  common  exposition,  but  a  common  confession  and 
mutual  good-will.  Where  the  catholic  spirit  is,  there 
is  the  Catholic  Church.  We  may  hope  for  so  much  of 
that  spirit  as  shall  serve  to  secure  a  full  recognition 
of  the  Christian  name  for  all  who  honestly  claim  it,  and 
a  friendly  co-operation  of  Christians  of  every  type  for 
practical  Christian  ends. 

The  time  is  prophetic  of  new  modifications  of  the 
ecclesiastical  world  and  a  better  life  for  the  Church. 
In  our  own  land,  the  unlimited  freedom  of  opinion 
accorded  by  law,  and  encouraged  by  the  absence  of  a 
national  Church,  has  ceased  to  develop  new  sects,  and 
is  drawing  the  old  into  nearer  communion.  It  is  widely 
felt  that  existing  lines  do  not  rightly  define  the  parties 
they  divide  ;  theological  distinctions  are  becoming  more 
and  more  indistinct ;  the  separative  tendency  has  ex- 
hausted its  force ;  a  unitive  tendency  has  begun.  In 
Enoiand,  writers  in  the  Established  Church  are  takinji 
the  lead  in  liberal  views  and  critical  inquiry.  In  Ger- 
many, criticism,  once  prevailingly  negative,    assumes 


222  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

more  and  more  an  affirmative  tone.  In  Italy,  where 
many  of  the  best  ideas  of  modern  society  had  their  rise, 
and  where  commenced  the  revival  of  the  Unitarian  faith, 
the  eldest  faith  of  Christendom,  — in  Italy  the  temporal 
power  of  the  Pope  —  that  public  offence  of  the  Chris- 
tian world  —  is  melting  away.  A  Catholic  Church 
without  a  hierarchy  may  become  a  progressive  Church, 
and  meanwhile  furnishes  the  surest  guaranty  for  the 
unity  of  Christendom. 

Throughout  the  Christian  world  the  prevailing  influ- 
ences favor  liberty ;  the  auspices  look  toward  an  era  of 
spiritual  life  untrammelled  by  priestly  rule  and  dog- 
matic conditions,  carrying  its  own  authority  in  its  own 
triumphant  and  beneficent  sway. 

A  celebrated  mystic  of  the  twelfth  century  *  predicted 
a  third  age  and  dispensation  of  God,  corresponding 
with  the  third  Person  in  tlie  Trinity.  The  first  age, 
representing  God  the  Father,  was  the  dispensation  of 
the  Law,  the  age  of  the  Old  Testament,  —  an  age 
of  bondage  and  fear.  The  second,  representing  the 
Son,  was  the  age  of  the  New  Testament, — an  age  of 
instruction  and  discipline,  a  dispensation  of  doctrine. 
The  third,  representing  the  Holy  Ghost,  is  to  be  an  age 
of  knowledge  and  spiritual  emancipation,  a  dispensa- 
tion of  liberty  and  love.  The  first  he  characterizes  as 
an  age  of  bondsmen ;  the  second,  an  age  of  freedmen  ; 
the  third,  of  friends;  —  the  first,  an  age  of  old  men; 
the  second,  of  the  middle-aged;  the  third,  of  children. 
Six  hundred  years  have  rolled  by  since  that  Calabrian 
monk  delivered  this  sublime  burden  of  the  Lord :  so  far 

*  Abbot  Joachim  of  Floris. 


THE  CAUSE  OF  REASON  THAT  OF  FAITH.    223 

does  the  vision  of  holy  and  loving  spirits  outstrip  the 
tardy-footed  ages  charged  with  the  execution  of  "  the 
pattern  in  the  mount." 

Six  hundred  years !    and  the   Christian  world   still 
waits  this  consummation  of  its  destiny. 


I. 

CULMINATION  OF    PERSONALITY  IN   THE 
CHRIST  OF  THE  CHURCH. 


I. 


CULMINATION  OF    PERSONALITY  IN,   TRE 
CHRIST  OF  THE  CHURCH. 


"Die  Personlichkeit  der  Hebel  der  Weltgeschichte."  — Bunsen. 


In  the  various  attempts  which  during  the  last  half-cen- 
tury have  been  made  to  construe  the  veritable  image  of 
Jesus  *  from  the  ill-dio^ested  and  often  conflictino:  ac- 
counts  of  the  four  Evangelists,  no  result  is  so  conspicu- 
ous as  the  impossibility  of  any  valid  and  final  solution 
of  that  problem.  The  historical  and  legendary  are  so 
confused  in  these  narratives,  the  genuine  sayings  of 
Jesus  are  often  so  undistinguishably  blended  with  the 
comments  and  interpolations  of  his  reporters,  that  criti- 
cism, incompetent  to  the  work  of  elimination,  can  do 
no  more  than  furnish  an  approximate  and  conjectural 
reconstruction,  liable  to  be  set  aside  by  each  succeed- 
ing critic  who  brings  to  the  subject  a  different  precon- 

*  Of  these  attempts  the  charming  work  of  Dr.  Fumess  ("  Jesus  and  his 
Biographers")  may  be  characterized  as  written  in  the  interest  of  faith  and 
in  a  spirit  of  enthusiastic  affirmation ;  that  of  Strauss  as  written  in  the  inter- 
est of  scepticism;  that  of  Neander,  in  the  interest  of  conser\-atism ;  that  of 
Schleiermacher  (posthumous  work  just  edited),  in  the  interest  of  impartial 
criticism;  that  of  Kenan,  of  historic  speculation;  that  of  Schenkel,  of 
historic  probability. 

[227  J 


228  EATIONiiL   CHRISTIANITY. 

ception,  or  adjusts  his  conclusions  by  a  different  light. 
It  comes  to  this  at  last,  that  every  reader  must  construct 
his  own  Christ  from  the  fourfold  record,  according  to 
his  own  impression  of  the  verisimilitudes  of  the  case. 
And,  on  the  whole,  the  impression  derived  immediately 
from  the  record  by  a  thoughtful  reader,  with  no  theory 
to  support  and  no  case  to  make  out,  is  quite  as  likely  to 
be  correct  as  any  obtained  through  a  foreign  medium. 

Were  it  possible  to  reproduce,  with  exactitude  beyond 
dispute,  the  portrait  of  the  true  historical  Jesus,  the 
image,  I  suppose,  would  be  found  to  differ  widely  from 
the  Christ  of  the  Church,  or  the  Christ  received  by  the 
great  majority  of  Christians.  Yet  there  is  one  point  in 
this  personality,  in  w^iich,  it  seems  to  me,  all  candid 
inquiry  must  agree,  —  one  fact  which  no  criticism  pro- 
fessing to  treat  these  narratives  as  in  any  sense  historical 
can  set  aside; — this,  namely,  that  Jesus  felt  himself 
"sent"  and  ordained  by  God  in  a  quite  peculiar  and 
exceptional  sense,  divinely  commissioned  to  establish  a 
heavenly  kingdom  on  the  earth ;  that  he  looked  upon 
himself  as  distinguished  from  other  men  by  virtue  of 
this  calling.  Whether  differing  from  them,  or  not,  in 
any  metaphysical  or  ontological  sense,  he  felt  himself 
officially,  politically,  discriminated  from  them  in  this 
respect. 

If  any  thing  in  the  New  Testament  is  historical,  it  is 
this, — that  Jesus  called  himself  "the  Son  of  Man." 
Whatever  may  be  the  precise  meaning  of  that  phrase, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  he  meant  to  designate  by  it 
a  distinguishing  peculiarity.  It  is  equally  certain,  that 
he  appropriated  to  himself  the  Messianic  prophecies  of 
his  countrymen ;  that  he  assumed  to  be  the  Christ,  — 


CULAIINATION  OF  PERSONALITY  IN  CHRIST.        229 

not  indeed  as  the  Jewish  people  figured  their  Messiah 
at  that  time,  or  at  any  time,  —  but  as  he  himself  inter- 
preted the  import  of  the  national  hope. 

This  seems  to  me  beyond  legitimate  question.  It, is 
not  more  certain  that  such  a  being  as  Jesus  existed,  than 
it  is  that  he  supposed  and  represented  himself  a  being 
apart  from  other  men,  in  the  sense  now  explained.  M. 
Renan  declares,  that  the  consciousness  of  God  in  Jesus 
exceeded  that  of  all  other  men.*  To  this  we  must  add, 
that  he  was  aware  of  the  peculiarity  of  this  conscious- 
ness. He  nowhere  assumes  to  be  an  incarnation  of 
God.  Such  an  idea,  as  M.  Renan  again  very  justly 
remarks,  was  entii'ely  foreign  to  the  Jewish -mind,  f 
And  when,  in  such  sayings  as  those  reported  in  the 
Fourth  Gospel,  "I  and  the  Father  are  one,"  "He  that 
hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the  Father,"  he  identifies 
hunself  with  the  one  Supreme,  he  does  so  in  the  sense 
of  personation  or  representation,  not  of  co-entity.  To 
constitute,  or  at  least  to  establish,  the  identity  con- 
templated by  the  Monophysite  doctrine,  it  would  not  be 
sufficient  that  Jesus  should  even  say  in  so  many  words 
(what  he  never  did  say),  "I  am  God."  It  would 
further  be  necessary  that  God  should  say,  speaking  by 
some  other  voice  of  equal  authority ,  "  I  am  Jesus," 
—  a  thing  inconceivable  and  self-contradictory.  At  the 
same  time,  it  is  probable  that  the  sayings  referred  to 
furnished  one  of  the  factors  in  that  deification  of  Jesus 
by  the  Church  which  still  prevails  in  Christian  dogma^ 


*  "  La  plus  haute  conscience  de  Dieu  qui  ait  existe  au  sein  de  I'human 
it^,  a  ^td  celle  de  Jesus."  —  Vie  de  Jesus. 

t "  Une  telle  id^e  etait  profond^ment  dtrangere  a  I'esprit  Juif."  — lb. 


230  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

tic.  Alexandrian  speculation  supplied  another ;  and  a 
third  may  be  found  in  that  view  of  atonement  which 
assumes  the  necessity  of  an  actual  contact  of  God  with 
man,  in  order  to  any  complete  redemption  of  human 
nature. 

All  the  varieties  of  opinion  which  have  been  enter- 
tained respecting  the  person  of  Christ  may  be  compre- 
hended under  these  four  heads  :  1.  Christ  is  mere  man, 
—  the  old  Jewish  (Ebionite,  Nazara^an)  and  modern 
Humanitarian  view.  2.  Christ  is  mere  God,  —  the 
old  Docetic,  Patripassian,  Monophysite,  and  modern 
pseudo-orthodox  view.  3.  Christ  is  neither  God  nor 
man,  but  a  being  between  both,  —  the  Arian  view. 
4.  Christ  is  both  God  and  man, — the  Catholic  and 
genuine  Orthodox  view. 

I  have  named  these  opinions  in  the  order  in  which 
they  make  their  appearance  in  the  history  of  Christian 
doctrine.  This  order  is  by  no  means  an  accidental 
sequence  or  wilful  determination,  but  represents  the 
natural  history  of  Church  Christology,  which  is  not  to 
be  conceived  as  a  human  invention,  but  a  natural,  spon- 
taneous growth. 

The  prevailing  doctrine  of  the  first  century  concern- 
ing Christ  was  Unitarian.  Jewish  converts  and  He- 
brew-Jewish ideas  had  then  the  ascendency  in  the 
Church;  and  eJudaism,  as  such,  was  strictly  and  purely 
Unitarian.  The  Jews,  at  leust  the  unlettered  and 
unspeculative  among  them,  were  rigid  Monotheists ; 
the  idea  of  division  or  multiplicity  in  the  Godhead  was 
utterly  abhorrent  to  their  conceptions,  and  outraged  all 
their  prejudices.     Their  God,  their  Jehovah,  was  not 


CULMINATION  OF  PERSONALITY  IN   CHRIST.        231 

only  one,  but  an  individual,  — a  great  and  powerful  indi- 
vidual, defined,  discrete,  and  incommunicable  ;  not  sole, 
universal  Being,  but  a  single,  particular  Being,  who 
created  the  world  in  the  beginning,  created  it  once  for 
all  and  put  it  from  him  ;  not  immanent  but  transient  in 
creation,  and  now  and  for  ever  apart  from  his  works ; 
different  in  substance  as  well  as  in  power  and  glory. 
This  rigid  Monotheism  contained  an  error  which  grad- 
ually undermined  it.  It  necessitated  in  philosophic 
minds  the  conception  of  an  intermediate  being  between 
God  and  his  works,  which  became,  as  we  shall  see,  a 
middle  term  or  point  of  transition  between  Hebrew 
Jehovism  and  Trinitarian  theism. 

Meanwhile,  that  class  of  Jews  who  for  the  most  part 
embraced  Christianity  un tinctured  by  such  speculations, 
received  it  as  fulfilment  of  their  national  prophecies. 
Christ  to  them  was  the  Beloved  in  whom  God  was  well 
pleased,  the  national  Messiah,  —  Son  of  God,  not  in  the 
sense  of  generation,  but  in  the  sense  of  election  and 
divine  favor.  God  was  in  heaven,  and  man  on  the 
earth :  nothino^  could  bridore  the  distance  between  them. 
The  risen  Christ  was  gone  to  God  and  would  soon 
return  to  judge  the  world,  and  establish  his  throne  on  the 
earth.  This  was  the  earliest  doctrine  concerning  Christ, 
the  Jew-Christian  doctrine,  the  Christology  of  the 
apostles.  The  doctrine  was  Unitarian  ;  it  distinguished 
broadly  between  God  and  Christ ; — no  hint,  as  yet,  of 
an  Athanasian  Trinity.  It  was  the  doctrine  of  the  first 
century.  There  is  no  Christian  writing,  whose  date  can 
be  proved  anterior  to  the  close  of  that  century,  which 
recognizes  a  different  doctrine,  unless  it  be  as  a  heresy 
to   be   repudiated.     The  Book   of  Revelation,   which 


232  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

recent  criticism  assigns  to  the  year  69,  knows  nothing 
of  a  God-Christ,  but  speaks  of  the  Lamb  as  entirely 
distinct  from  God,  —  symbol  of  the  mediatorial  office. 

But  when,  with  the  fall  of  Jerusalem,  the  Palestinian 
Jews  lost  their  influence  in  the  Church,  and  Gentile 
tendencies  and  Gentile  conceptions  gradually  obtained 
the  ascendency,  a  new  phase  of  the  doctrine  concerning 
Christ,  diametrically  opposed  to  the  foregoing,  and  rep- 
resenting the  contrary  extreme,  developed  itself;  a 
view  which,  overlooking  his  Messianic  character,  denied 
the  proper  humanity  of  Jesus,  and  affirmed  him  to  be 
"very  God  ;  "  God  in  a  human  body,  — that  body  his 
only  human  attribute.  Some*  even  went  the  length 
of  denying  to  that  body  material  consistency  :  it  was  no 
true  body,  but  an  apparition;  —  the  visible  Christ  an 
apparition  with  which,  through  the  medium  of  their 
deluded  senses,  God  acted  on  the  thoughts  and  faith  of 
mankind.  Others,  who  allowed  the  fleshly  body,  de- 
nied the  human  soul,  and  all  the  other  attributes  of 
humanity.  They  knew  no  difference  between  Christ 
and  God  :  these  were  only  different  names  for  one  and 
■"  the  same  person. 

This  view,  known  as  Patripassian  in  relation  to 
Christ,  as  Monarchian  in  relation  to  God,  prevailed 
especially  in  the  Western  portion  of  the  Church.  Both 
West  and  East  meanwhile  united  in  the  common  con- 
fession of  three  sanctities,  —  Father,  Son,  and  Holy 
Spirit.  But  in  the  West  the  Monarchian  view  of  the 
divine  nature  regarded  these  three,  not  as  separate 
persons,  but  only  as  different  names  for  the  one  God. 


*  TheDocetse. 


CULMIXATIOX  OF   PERSONALITY  IN   CHRIST.        233 

In  the  East,  on  the  other  hand,  theological  speculation 
inclined  to  hypostatize  Son  and  Spirit,  while  at  the 
same  time  it  recoirnized  a  human  nature  in  the  Christ. 

And  now  comes  in  that  most  important  element 
in  ecclesiastical  Christology,  as  elaborated  by  eastern 
theologians,  the  idea  of  the  Logos,  —  a  kind  of  second- 
ary Deity,  —  whose  origin  requires  a  word  of  explana- 
tion. 

We  observe  in  the  animal  kingdom  a  regular  grada- 
tion of  being,  in  descending  series  from  man  through 
the  simite  and  other  mammals  and  vertebrates  ;  through 
serpents,  mollusks,  medusa?,  down  to  the  rhizopod,  or 
whatever  may  be  the  lowest  term  and  extreme  limit  of 
animal  nature.  Analogy  suggests  a  similar  gradation 
in  the  spiritual  world, — an  ascending  series  reaching 
up  from  man  to  God.  But  the  supposition  of  such  a 
series  is  contradicted  by  the  very  idea  of  an  Infinite  Be- 
ing. We  may  push  our  scale  up  througli  the  heavenly 
principalities,  from  angel  to  archangel,  from  cherub  to 
seraph;  but  the  highest  finite  is  still  a  creature,  —  it 
had  a  beirinnin":,  an  orio^In  in  time  ;  between  it  and  the 
uncreated  there  is  still  a  gulf,  which  creation  (as  the 
Jews  understood  creation,  and  as  most  Christians  under- 
stand it)  cannot  bridge.  So  long  as  the  Infinite  is 
conceived  as  a  separate  Being,  the  topmost  round  of 
your  ascending  scale,  the  higliest  finite  is  logically  no 
nearer  the  Infinite  than  the  lowest. 

To  bridije  this  crulf,  to  brins:  the  Godhead  into  such 
connection  and  communication  with  the  worlds,  — espe- 
cially the  human  world,  —  as  religion  craved,  Jewish 
philosophy  had  recourse  to  the  supposition  of  an  inter- 
mediate agent ;  a  power  intervening  between  God  and 


234  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

creature,  and  connecting  the  two,  —  Wisdom,  or  the 
Word  (^Logos) .  This  conception,  not  yet  hypostatized, 
is  shown  to  have  originated  in  the  Jewish  mind  *  before 
the  Christian  era,  and  independent  of  Platonism,  to 
which  it  has  usually  been  referred. 

Christian  theology  applied  this  conception  to  the 
Messiah,  using  the  term  "Son"  as  convertible  with 
"  Word."  The  Christ  was  the  incarnate  "  Word."  But 
now,  though  the  reason  of  this  conception  seemed  to 
imply  the  eternity  of  the  Word,  a  question  arose  :  Was 
tlie  Son,  supposed  to  be  incarnate  in  Jesus,  created  or 
uncreated?  The  Arian  controversy  concerned  precisely 
this  point.  Arius,  considering  the  matter  from  the 
ground  of  the  understanding,  maintained  that  the  Son 
was  a  creature.  Otherwise,  he  said,  you  must  either 
suppose  two  original  divine  essences  (ditheism),  or  else, 
if  you  substitute  "  generation  "  for  "  creation,"  you  sup- 
pose with  the  Gnostics  a  partition  of  the  divine  essence. 
Accordingly,  the  Christ  of  the  Arian  view  is  neither 
God  nor  man,  but  a  being  intermediate  between  the 
two.  And  this  is  the  third  of  the  four  hypotheses  con- 
cerning the  nature  of  Christ. 

But  Arlanism  leaves  the  chasm  unatoned.  If  the 
Son  is  a  creature,  then  (it  was  urged)  there  is  still  the 
infinite  distance  between  God  and  man.  But,  in  order 
that  man  may  be  redeemed.  Divinity  must  be  in  imme- 
diate contact  with  humanity.  God  and  man  must  unite 
in  one  person.  To  meet  this  difficulty,  the  Orthodox 
claimed  that  the  Son  was  not  created,  but  generated,  and 


*  See  an  excellent  dissertation  on  this  subject  by  Michel  Nicolas:  "Dea 
Doctrines  Religieuses  des  Juifs." 


CULMINATION   OF   PERSONALITY   IN   CHRIST.        235 

that  from  all  eternity.  Consequently,  the  Son  is  of 
the  substance  of  the  Father  (Jiomousioii) ,  and  there 
never  was  a  time  when  the  Son  was  not.  Both  parties 
held  that  the  Logos  was  incarnate  in  Jesus.  According 
to  one,  it  was  tlie  incarnation  of  a  creature,  leaving  a 
void  between  God  and  man.  According  to  the  other, 
it  was  the  incarnation  of  an  uncreated,  eternal  and  di- 
vine Power,  whereby  the  void  is  filled  ;  man  being,  in 
Christ,  in  immediate  contact  with  God.* 

Arian  Christology  triumphed  for  a  time  ;  but  Atha- 
nasius,  the  bulwark  of  philosophic  Christianity,  the  hope 
of  the  Church,  was  inflexible.  His  single  indomitable 
will  decided  the  destinies  of  Christian  theosophy.  The 
Homousian  doctrine,  already  approved  by  the  Council 
of  Nicfea  in  325,  was  re-affirmed  and  applied  to  the 
Spirit  as  well  as  the  Son  at  the  second  oecumenical 
Council,  assembled  at  Constantinople  in  381,  when  the 
Trinitarian  creed,  as  we  now  have  it,  was  adopted  and 
established. 

Another  question  remained  to  be  considered,  and 
another  half-century  was  spent  in  discussing  it.  Grant- 
ing the  complete  Deity  of  the  Son  or  Divine  Word,  how 


*  The  fallacy  of  this  conclusion  is  ven'  transparent.  Allowing  that  God 
is  exceptionally  present,  in  the  coarse,  materialistic  sense  supposed,  with  the 
man  Jesus;  still,  Jesus  was  an  individual,  and  being  thus  excepted,  and  ab- 
normally possessed,  there  is  a  gulf  between  him  and  other  individuals,  which 
the  Trinitarian  theory  leaves  unfilled,  and  which  only  the  dogma  of  Tran- 
substantiatioii,  affirming  the  actual,  material  participation  of  Christ  (that  is, 
in  the  Trinitarian  view,  of  God)  by  believers  in  the  Eucharist,  can  bridge. 
Transubstantiation  is  the  logical  complement  of  that  materialistic  view  of 
atonement  by  substantial  contact  of  God,  conceived  as  individual,  with  a 
certain  human  individual. 


236  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

is  that  Deity  united  to  humanity  in  Jesus  Christ?  How 
do  God  and  man  in  Christ  consist  together  ?  On  this 
point,  two  parties  were  opposed  to  each  other  in  mutual 
mad  strife.  One  party  would  merge  the  human  in  the 
divine,  and  know  no  Christ  but  unmixed  God.  The 
other  demanded  the  human  nature  undivided  and  unim- 
paired. The  controversy  was,  in  some  sort  and  in  some 
of  its  stages,  a  feud  between  the  intelligent,  refined, 
and  conscientious  ecclesiastics  on  one  side,  and  the  igno- 
rant, rude  mob,  led  on  by  the  turbulent  and  unprincipled 
Cyril,  bishop  of  Alexandria,  on  the  other.  Thoughtful 
men,  like  Nestorius,  while  admitting  the  deity  of  Christ 
in  the  sense  of  the  creed  of  Niciea,  stumbled  at  such 
conceptions  as  that  expressed  by  the  phrase  "  Mother 
of  God,"  applied  to  Mary.  They  protested  that  "a 
child  of  two  years  old"  was  no  God.  But  the  mob 
of  ecclesiastics  rejoiced  in  such  views,  and,  headed  by 
Cyril,  who  brought  a  band  of  ruffians  to  the  Council 
of  Ephesus  for  that  purpose,  with  intimidation  and  in- 
trigue enforced  their  adoption  by  that  Council,  A.D. 
431,  too-ether  with  the  doctrine  of  the  one  undivided 
person  of  Christ. 

But  wisdom  and  order  finally  prevailed.  The  attempt 
to  force  on  the  reluctant  Church  the  Monophysite  doc- 
trine —  the  doctrine  of  one  nature  in  Christ,  and  that 
nature  the  divine  —  was  foiled  at  every  turn ;  and,  at 
last,  the  Council  of  Chalcedon,  in  451,  decided  that  tw^o 
natures,  a  human  and  divine,  subsist  together  in  Christ, 
without  conflict  or  confusion,  each  doing  its  own  w^ork, 
each  preserving  its  own  property,  and  both  combining 
in  one  appearance  and  one  eiFect.  In  vain  the  Mono- 
physite party  struggled  a  century  longer,  under  different 


CULMINATION   OF  PERSONALITY  IN   CHRIST.        237 

pretexts,  with  various  devices,  to  overthrow  the  decision 
of  this  Council :  it  continued  to  be  the  Orthodox  faith. 
As  such  it  was  re-affirmed  by  another  Council  at  Con- 
stantinople (fifth  oecumenical,  553),  a  century  later; 
and  when,  in  the  seventh  century,  the  question  came  up 
in  another  form,  — the  question  of  one  or  two  wills  in 
Christ,  —  a  sixth  Council  (sixth  oecumenical,  Constanti- 
nople, 680)  decided,  in  perfect  agreement  with  that  of 
Chalcedon,  that  two  wills  were  united  in  Christ,  without 
schism  and  without  confusion, — "the  human  invariably, 
subject  to  the  divine." 

That  final  decision  of  the  Council  of  Chalcedon 
has  never  been  set  aside,  it  remains  to  this  day  the 
Orthodox  doctrine.  Very  different,  indeed,  from  the 
would-be  Orthodoxy  wl^ich  overlooks  or  postpones 
the  humanity  of  Christ.  The  true  significance  of  that 
decision  is  not  generally  understood.  It  is  the  most 
comprehensive  view  that  has  ever  been  propounded 
respecting  the  person  of  Jesus.  While  it  acknowl- 
edges the  divine  origin  and  authority  of  the  Christian 
dispensation,  and  gives  assurance  that  this  mighty  agent 
in  the  education  of  the  human  race  is  no  accident  or 
human  invention,  —  not  born,  as  the  Scrij^ture  says, 
"of  the  will  of  the  flesh,  or  the  will  of  man,  but  of 
God  ;  "  that  God  himself  conducts  the  education  of  man, 
and  is  spiritually,  as  well  as  providentially,  immanent 
in  this  human  world,  —  it  also  declares,  that  man  is  the 
medium,  as  well  as  the  object,  of  this  dispensation, — 
of  this  system  of  divine  education  ;  that  the  highest 
revelation  and  'expression  of  the  Godhead  is  man  ;  that 
human  nature,  in  its  purity  and  truth,  embodies  the 
divine.     The  creed  of  Nicaea,  the  first  authoritative  step 


238  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

in  the  formation  of  the  doctrine  concerning  Christ,  de- 
clares that  the  Word  made  flesh  in  Jesus  is  of  one  sub- 
stance with  the  Father.  This  statement  is  one  which 
concerns  human  nature  as  well  as  the  divine.  If,  on 
the  one  hand,  it  represents  God  as  self-communicating, 
as  passing  out  of  self  in  action  and  revelation,  contrary 
to  the  Hebrew  idea  which  made  God  an  isolated,  incom- 
municable individuality  ;  on  the  other  hand,  it  represents 
man  as  partaker  of  the  divine  nature,  as  the  vehicle 
and  manifestation  of  Godhead.  For  the  Son  of  Man  is 
humanity's  type ;  "  the  Lord  from  heaven "  is  human 
nature  in  its  heavenly  image.  "  Christ,"  said  Irenseus, 
"became  what  we  are,  that  we  might  become  what  he 
is."  We  cannot  be  too  thankful,  that  the  Athanasian 
view  in  this  Council  prevailed  against  the  Arian,  which 
recognizes  no  divinity  in  man. 

The  same  view  was  more  fully  developed  and  more 
adequately  expressed,  although  unconsciously  perhaps 
to  those  who  framed  them,  in  the  formulas  of  the  Coun- 
cil of  Chalcedop  ;  the  substance  of  which  is,  that  God 
and  man  are  one  in  Christ,  and  the  deep  interior  sense 
of  which  is,  that  God  and  man  are  one, — that  human 
nature  is  in  real  communion  with  the  divine.  What 
was  true  of  Christ  historically  is  potentially  true  of  all 
men.  There  is  nothing  between  God  and  man  but 
man's  self- alienation  through  waywardness  and  sin. 
The  most  liberal  and  radical  of  modern  theologians, 
the  late  Dr.  Baur  of  Tubingen,  does  but  re-affirm  the 
decisions  of  the  Councils  and  the  Orthodoxy  of  the 
Church,  when  he  declares  that  "  the  most  essential  and 
distinctive  doctrine  of  Christianity  is,  that  God  became 
man  in  Christ ;  "  and  when  he  states,  as  the  sense  of  the 


CULMINATION  OF  PERSONALITY  IN  CHRIST.         239 

dogma  of  the  Trinity,  that  '^  God  and  man  are  one  in 
the  self-consciousness  of  the  Spirit." 

It  must  not,  however,  be  supposed,  that  this  Interpre- 
tation of  the  doctrine  of  Chalcedon  was  popularly  re- 
ceived and  understood,  or  even  that  the  doctrine  itself 
of  the  two  natures  in  Christ,  though  established  by 
Council,  was  the  commonly  received  view,  and  the  one 
which  practically  prevailed  in  the  middle  age.  The  in- 
terior sense  of  that  decision  was  far  in  advance  of  the 
consciousness  of  the  Church,  in  that  and  subsequent 
times.  The  humanity  of  Christ  was  sunk  in  oblivion ; 
the  two  natures  were  merged  in  one,  — that  one  the  su- 
perhuman and  divine.  Christ  was  God,  and  only  God, 
in  the  popular  conception  of  that  and  the  following  ages 
of  the  Church.  There  was  no  wilfulness  in  this,  and 
no  mishap.  There  were  good  and  weiglity  reasons  for 
it  in  the  nature  of  man  and  the  circumstances  of  the 
time.  We  may  call  it  a  corruption  of  Christian  doc- 
trine :  only  let  us  understand  that  this  corruption  was 
not  designed,  but  providential,  —  a  providential  phase 
of  Christian  development,  a  necessary  stage  in  the  his- 
tory of  religion  ;  necessary  in  the  counsels  of  the  Spirit, 
necessary  in  human  experience.  No  doubt  it  satisfied  a 
real  want  of  the  soul.  Whether  it  was  that  the  Chris- 
tian religion  obtained  thereby  an  authority  and  sanction, 
v/hich  its  moral  superiority  alone  would  not  have  secured 
to  it ;  or  whether  the  human  mind  required  and  still 
requires  in  the  God  of  its  worship  a  more  definite  and 
appreciable  object  than  it  finds  in  the  proposition,  "God 
is  spirit," —  an  historical  and  human  God, — whatever 
the  occasion  and  cause,  no  doubt  the  general  prevalence 
of  this  conception  of  Christ  as  God  is  justified  by  the 


240  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITT. 

moral  and  spiritual  needs  of  mankind.  I  must  suppose 
a  providential  order,  a  divine  method  and  reason,  in  it. 
But  observe,  that,  v^hen  Christ  is  declared  to  be  God, 
that  declaration  is,  properly  considered,  a  definition,  not 
of  Christ,  but  of  God.  The  rule  is  to  define  the  less 
known  by  means  of  the  more  known.  Of  Christ  we 
have  some  definite  knowled2:e  from  the  record  of  the 
New  Testament.  Of  God  we  know  nothing  except  by 
hypothesis  or  faith,  and  can  apprehend  nothing  except 
by  illustration.  The  unknown  God  may  be  made  more 
intelligible  by  identifying  him  with  the  known  historical 
character  of  the  evangelical  record ;  but  the  known  liis- 
torical  character  is  made  no  clearer  by  identifying  him 
with  the  unknown  God.  If  a  chemist  should  define 
electricity  by  saying,  "  It  is  the  principle  of  life  in  the 
world  of  spirits,"  he  would  give  me  no  clearer  idea  of 
electricity,  whatever  he  might  of  the  life-principle  of 
the  spirit- world.  To  say  that  Christ  is  God  may  bring 
God  nearer  to  my  apprehension  :  but,  as  to  Christ,  this 
saying  but  puts  him  farther  from  me ;  and,  instead  of 
a  genuine  human  life,  a  life  of  stru2:ole  and  of  suflferino;, 
—  the  life  of  one  "  who  was  tempted  in  all  points  as  we 
are," —  it  gives  us  a  spectral  illusion,  at  best  a  dramatic 
exhibition,  a  part  enacted  by  Omnipotence  in  the  scenes 
of  time. 

In  point  of  fact,  I  suppose  no  man,  whatever  creed 
he  may  adopt,  really  believes,  or  can  believe,  that  Christ 
is  God  in  the  sense  which  is  sometimes  claimed,  — 
wliich  was  claimed  by  the  old  Monophy sites,  —  in  the 
sense  that  the  Jesus  who  was  born  in  Bethlehem,  and 
died  on  Calvary,  was  identical  with  the  Infinite  Father, 
and   co-ordinate    with   absolute   Being.      It   is   hardly 


CULMINATION  OF  PERSONALITY  IN  CHRIST.         241 

possible  to  state  the  doctrine  so  as  not  to  leave  some 
loop-hole  of  escape  from  such  a  paradox.  When  the 
"  Athanasian  Creed,"  the  highest  Trinitarian  standard, 
affirms  the  Father  unbegotten  and  the  Son  begotten,  it 
affirms  an  infinite  difference  between  them. 

The  question  concerning  the  nature  of  Christ  was 
the  first  opened,  and  will  probably  be  the  last  closed  in 
Christian  dogmatics.  Scarcely  can  two  individuals  be 
found  who  think  precisely  alike  in  this  matter  ;  and  yet 
all  who  rightly  claim  the  name  of  Christian  are  agreed 
in  this,  that  there  is  a  divine  and  also  a  human  element 
in  the  gospel  and  life  of  Christ.  In  w^hat  manner  and 
proportion  these  elements  unite,  who  can  ascertain  with 
perfect  assurance  for  himself? — who  will  undertake  to 
determine  for  others  ?  Councils  and  creeds  may  decide 
the  question  for  ecclesiastical  use ;  but  no  council  can 
determine  and  no  creed  can  state  it  with  such  authority 
and  such  precision  as  to  satisfy  all  the  demands  of  the 
understanding  and  the  heart.  It  is  a  question  of  phi- 
losophy, not  of  religion,  and  one  whose  theoretical  solu- 
tion is  not  essential  to  spiritual  growth.  The  heart  that 
seeks  will  find  a  practical  solution  of  it  suited  to  its  own 
need ;  but  all  will  not  find  the  same.  Some  are  born 
to  one  way  of  thinking,  some  to  another.  Some  pre- 
fer to  contemplate  the  divine  in  Christianity ;  some,  the 
human.  Some  require  a  human  God  for  their  Saviour, 
and  some  require  a  mortal  example  for  their  standard 
and  oruide  in  action  and  sufferins^. 

To  me  it  seems,  that  the  truest  form  of  Christian  faith 

unites  both  elements,  the  divine  and  the  human ;   and 

that  none  can  know  the  full  power  of  the  gospel,  and 

16 


242  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

experience  all  its  height  and  depth  and  breadth,  where 
either  is  wanting. 

I.  We  want  the  divine ;  we  want  to  see  in  Christi- 
anity the  power  of  God  and  the  wisdom  of  God  made 
manifest  for  the  moral  welfare  of  man  ;  we  want  to  see 
the  Spirit  of  God  entering  into  human  nature  to  revive 
and  redeem  it.  We  want  a  teacher  conscious  of  God's 
inpresence,  claiming  attention  as  a  voice  out  of  the  heav- 
ens. We  want  a  doctrine  which  shall  announce  itself 
with  divine  authority ;  not  a  system  of  moral  philoso- 
phy, but  the  word  and  kingdom  of  God.  Without  this 
stamp  of  divine  legitimacy,  without  the  witness  and 
signature  of  the  Eternal,  Christianity  would  want  that 
which  alone  gives  it  weight  with  the  mass  of  mankind, 
and  the  place  it  now  holds  in  human  things.  This  it  is 
which  constitutes  the  specific  difference  between  philoso- 
phy and  religion ;  between  the  abstractions  of  the  intel- 
lect addressed  to  the  intellect,  and  truth  incarnate, 
addressing  heart  and  will. 

II.  We  need  in  Christianity  the  human  also.  We 
need  the  Son  of  Man ;  we  need  the  human  example  as 
model  and  motive.  We  need,  for  our  Saviour,  a  nature 
to  which  no  human  experience  is  strange, — a  nature 
that  images  but  completes  our  own.  If  I  saw  in  Jesus 
only  God  assuming  human  nature,  enacting  a  human 
part  for  the  inculcation  of  moral  truth,  I  should  see  an 
illustration  of  the  fair  and  G^ood,  but  without  flesh  and 
bones  ;  a  hollow  apparition.  I  need  no  gospel  to  show 
me  that  God  is  without  sin,  that  God  can  act  wisely, 
that  God  can  bless.  What  I  want  to  know  is,  that  man 
can  resist ;  that  man  can  endure  ;  that  man  can  be  holy, 
and  live  a  sinless  life  on  the  earth.     This  is  the  lesson 


CULMINATION  OF  PEKSONALITY  IN  CHRIST.  243 

of  the  life  of  Jesus,  and  this  its  chief  value  for  us.  The 
gospel  is  given  as  a  revelation  of  God,  but  is  given  also 
as  a  revelation  of  man ;  as  a  type  of  human  nature,  a 
pledge  of  human  destiny ;  as  encouragement  to  human 
frailty,  as  incentive  to  action ;  a  call  from  the  Son  of 
Man  to  the  sons  of  men,  —  a  call  to  glory  and  immor- 
tality ;  a  pledge  of  divine  communications  according 
to  the  measure  of  faith ;  a  witness  to  all  generations 
that  the  communications  of  Godhead,  and  the  wonder- 
working power  of  the  Spirit,  are  always  equal  to  man's 
receptivity,  and  that  the  measure  of  man's  receptivity 
is  his  obedience. 


n. 


LIMITATION  OF  PERSONALITY  IN  THE 
CHRIST  OF  REASON. 


n. 


LIMITATION  OF  PEKSONALITY  IN  THE 
CHKIST  OF  KEASON. 


"  Then  shall  also  the  Son  himself  be  subject  unto  him  that  put  all  things 
under  him,  that  God  may  be  all  in  all."  —  St.  Paul. 


It  is  the  tendency  of  intellectual  progTess  to  displace 
personalities  with  ideas  and  laws.  This  is  strikingly- 
manifest  in  the  change  which  the  progress  of  science 
effects  in  man's  conception  of  material  nature.  The 
savao;e  sees  in  nature  an  ao^o-resation  of  innumerable 
personalities.  Mountain,  lake,  and  forest  are  alive 
with  conscious,  invisible  agents.  Earth  and  sky  are 
peopled  with  friendly  or  malignant  beings ;  every  nat- 
ural process  is  the  voluntary  act  of  some  good  or  evil 
spirit,  designed  for  the  benefit  or  injury  of  human 
kind. 

The  early  religions  incorporated  this  view  of  nature 
in  their  systems  of  divinity  and  the  objects  of  their  wor- 
ship. They  adorod  every  natural  agency,  almost  every 
natural  object,  as  embodying  or  (in  the  case  of  Feti- 
chism)  as  being  a  divine  person.  Every  tree  and  every 
river  had  its  god ;  the  ocean  swarmed  with  divinities  ; 
the  very  winds^ were  sacred  personages,  —  all  natural 

[247] 


248  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

agents  conscious  individuals,  objects  of  religious  wor- 
ship. 'Not  only  the  Greek  and  Koman  polytheisms, 
with  whose  fanciful  impersonations  we  are  more  famil- 
iar, but  most  of  the  religions  of  antiquity,  like  most 
Gentile  religions  of  our  own  time,  personified  and 
deified  natural  objects  and  agencies.  The  devout 
Egyptian,  beset  before  and  behind  with  his  copious 
mythology,  could  scarcely  steer  his  daily  course  amid 
the  sanctities  which  environed  him,  without  profaning 
some  god  by  unritual  contact  and  secular  use.  The 
Persian  derived  from  his  two  supreme  Principles  of 
Good  and  Evil  an  infinity  of  good  and  evil  spirits.  The 
Hebrew,  even,  believer  as  he  was,  by  calling  and  pro- 
fession, in  one  only  God,  adopted  from  his  neighbors, 
as  objects  of  faith,  if  not  of  worship,  a  mythology  of 
angels,  good  and  bad,  which  formed  no  part  of  the  law 
of  Moses,  but  which  a  later  superstition  engrafted  on 
the  earlier  creed. 

The  progress  of  science  dispels  these  illusions,  re- 
places the  mythological  view  of  nature  with  the  scien- 
tific, puts  natural  forces  for  voluntary  agents,  dethrones 
the  old  divinities,  disenchants  the  landscape,  unpeoples 
earth  and  flood,  and  gives  us  a  code  of  rational  laws 
instead  of  a  hierarchy  of  gods.  The  first  effect  of  this 
change  from  mythology  to  science  is  to  rob  nature  of 
half  her  charms.  It  seems  to  take  from  the  landscape 
its  best  interest,  —  the  interest  of  personality.  The 
world,  as  interpreted  by  science,  seems  cold  and  deso- 
late and  dead,  compared  with  the  populous  and  teeming 
nature  of  old  poetic  tradition, — the  world  of  sylphs 
and  dryads  and  nereids  and  gnomes,- — a  world  in 
which  the  whispers  of  the  poplar  and  the  pine  could 


LIMITATION   OF  PERSONALITY  IN   CUIilST.  249 

seem  mtelllgent  and  articulate  voices ;  the  sparkle  of 
the  wave,  half  seen  through  the  bushes,  the  smile 
of  some  inhabiting  spirit,  —  a  world  where  the  deepest 
solitude  promised  the  richest  communion  ;  not  internal, 
spiritual,  but  visible,  audible  communion  with  angel  or 
sprite.  The  most  Christian  of  the  poets  of  this  century, 
smitten  with  the  recollection  of  those  old  beliefs,  now 
become  pleasant  fables  merely,  could  exclaim  in  a  mo- 
ment of  impatient  protest  against  the  sordid  utilities  of 

modern  life,  — 

"  Great  God  !  I'd  rather  be 
A  pagan  suckled  in  a  creed  outworn, 
So  might  I,  standing  on  this  pleasant  lea, 
Have  glimpses  that  would  make  me  less  forlorn,  — 
Have  sight  of  Proteus  coming  from  the  sea, 
Or  hear  old  Triton  blow  his  wreathed  horn." 

But  a  better  experience  succeeds.  It  is  true,  the 
charm  of  the  old  world,  born  of  mystery  and  ignorance, 
vanishes  with  the  dawn  of  science ;  but  a  new  interest, 
born  of  light  and  knowledge,  springs  in  its  place. 
Pleasant  was  the  old  belief  in  personal  powers  pervad- 
ing nature  with  conscious  eiFort,  —  spirits  of  earth  and 
air  :  but  a  nobler  satisfaction  attends  the  revelations  of 
that  science  which  presents  the  authentic  marvels  of  cre- 
ation, and  enlarges  indefinitely  the  sphere  of  our  percep- 
tion ;  which  rolls  back  the  curtains  of  time  and  space, 
and  discloses  a  universe  immeasurably  wider,  grander, 
richer  than  the  wildest  imaginings  of  the  men  of  old,  — 
revealing,  in  the  boundless  empyrean,  worlds  so  remote 
that  all  the  ages  of  human  history  would  not  suffice 
for  the  swift  -  footed  light  to  accomplish  the  distance 
between  them  and  us ;  which  finds  past  eternities  chron- 
icled in  the  earth's  crust,  —  foregone  creations  pressed, 


250  RATIONAL    CHRISTIANITY. 

like  a  botanist's  herbal,  between  the  leaves  of  the  rocks  ; 
which  encounters  microscopic  nations  in  a  handful  of 
dust,  and  sees  continents  reclaimed  by  successive  gener- 
ations of  insect  architects,  converting  sea  into  dry  land ; 
which  discovers,  in  all  the  realms  of  organism  and  in 
all  the  processes  of  chemic  and  mechanic  nature,  such 
marks  of  pervading  mind,  such  vestiges  of  all-present 
Deity,  as  abundantly  compensate  the  absence  of  the 
fauns  and  dryads  of  Greek  superstition,  or  the  elfs  and 
gnomes  of  the  Gothic  creed.  The  poet  whom  I  have 
quoted  is  glad,  in  a  happier  mood,  to  acknowledge  this 
holier  Presence  wliich  replaces  to  the  modem,  instructed, 
thoughtful  observer  the  trivial  beings  of  the  old  my- 
thology, — 

"  A  presence  far  more  deeply  interfused, 
Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns, 
And  the  round  ocean  and  the  living  air, 
And  the  blue  sky,  and  in  the  mind  of  man,  — 
A  motion  and  a  spirit  that  impels 
All  thinking  things,  all  objects  of  all  thought, 
And  rolls  through  all  things." 

What  science  has  done  for  nature,  Christianity,  when 
first  promulgated,  did  for  religion :  it  discharged  the 
mind  of  its  former  reverences,  while,  at  the  same  time, 
it  instilled  a  far  profounder  reverence  for  new  and  sub- 
limer  ideas  in  the  soul.  The  preaching  of  the  gospel 
scared  the  old  sanctities  from  all  their  haunts,  as  the 
cockcrow  scares  the  spirits  of  the  night.  It  shook 
the  gods,  like  withered  leaves,  from  all  the  branches  of 
mortal  life  ;  but  new-hallowed  the  tree  by  deriving  its 
sap  direct  from  the  one  Supreme,  and  grafting  on 
its  stock  the  divine  humanity  from  which,  as  a  branch 
abiding  in  the  vine,  every  faithful  soul  imbibes  its  por- 


LIMITATION  OF  PEKSONALITY  IN  CHRIST.  251 

tion  of  divine  nature.  It  expelled  from  the  field  of 
faith  and  worship  all  lesser  personalities,  and  claimed 
the  whole  s^round  for  the  one  eternal  Person  above  all 
and  through  all  and  in  all.  The  birth  of  Christ  emp- 
tied the  pantheon,  and  disenchanted  the  landscape. 

"  From  haunted  spring  and  dale, 
Edged  with  poplar  pale, 
The  parting  genius  is  with  sighing  sent." 

And  piety  resented  the  desecration.  Nothing  in  prim- 
itive Christianity  more  shocked  the  Roman  world 
than  its  want  of  divinities.  It  was  not  enough  that 
Christians  believed  in  One  above  all :  intelligent  Gen- 
tiles did  the  same.  "We  know,"  says  Plutarch,  "that, 
among  the  great  company  of  gods  which  are  generally 
believed,  there  is  but  one  who  is  eternal  and  immuta- 
ble :  all  the  rest,  having  been  born  in  time,  shall  end 
in  death."  But  then  the  Gentiles  did  believe  in  those 
inferior  divinities  :  the  Christians  did  not,  and  were 
therefore  accounted  atheists  by  their  fellow-citizens. 
In  the  persecution  of  the  Christians  instituted  by  the 
Emperor  Diocletian,  when  the  church  at  Nicomedia 
was  destroyed  by  the  imperial  commissioners,  the  people 
ransacked  the  sacred  precincts  in  vain  for  shrines  and 
statues,  representing  Christian  divinities,  on  which  to 
wreak  their  spite.  No  statue,  no  idol,  found  they; 
no  sacred  thing  which  they  could  insult ;  nothing  but  a 
copy  of  the  Scriptures,  — the  Church  Bible,  — which 
they  brought  out,  and  publicly  burned  in  the  market- 
place. The  fact  is  symbolic :  it  illustrates  the  grand 
distinction  between  the  Christian  religion  and  most  of 
the  religions  of  antiquity.  No  idol  but  a  book.  Above 
all  personalities,  the  Sacred  Word ;  the  best  thoughts  of 


252  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

the  best  minds  ;  their  holiest  and  deepest,  purged  of  all 
personal  infirmities  and  limitations ;  the  purest  utter- 
ance of  the  Spirit. 

Christianity,  we  know,  did  not  keep  in  this  its  first 
estate.  The  idols  it  expelled  returned  to  confuse  and 
corrupt  the  Church.  Canonized  saints  succeeded  to 
the  seats  of  heroes  and  demigods  ;  a  Christian  pantheon 
replaced  the  gentile  ;  a  new  mythology  filled  its  niches 
and  shrines  with  a  new  code  of  sacred  personalities, 
superior  indeed  to  the  old  in  its  moral  scope,  but,  like 
that,  entangling  devotion  with  secondary  objects,  and 
interposing  inferior  sanctities  between  the  soul  and  the 
All-holy. 

One  principal  effect,  as  it  was  one  principal  aim,  of 
the  Protestant  reform,  has  been  to  purify  Christian  wor- 
ship ;  to  recall  devotion  from  the  adoration  of  all  lesser 
names,  and  fix  it  on  the  true  and  only  God.  And  if 
some  who  profess  the  Christian  faith  have  gone  further 
in  this  reform  than  others  ;  if,  not  content  with  repudi- 
ating the  worship  of  the  Virgin  and  the  saints,  they 
also  deny  to  the  person  of  Christ  the  supreme  homage 
which  belongs  to  the  Supreme  God,  they  have  been, 
whether  right  or  wrong,  impelled  to  this  result  by 
precisely  the  same  feeling  which  actuated  the  early 
reformers  in  their  renunciation  of  saint-worship  and 
Mary- worship,  —  the  desire  to  come  into  primary  and 
direct  relation  and  communion  with  the  Father  of 
spirits,  and  the  consciousness  that  the  fact  of  creation, 
as  well  as  the  calling  in  Christ,  entitles  and  invites  to 
such  communion. 

Another  cause  conducing  to  the  same  result  is  the 
preference  given  by  this  class  of  minds  to  the  ethical 


LIMITATION  OF  PERSON.VLITY  IN   CHRIST.  253 

above  the  dogmatic  in  religion.  What  they  value  most 
in  Christianity  is  its  clear  revelation  of  moral  truth ;  its 
sharp  and  emphatic  enunciation  of  the  law  of  love  ;  and 
the  aid  it  furnishes  to  purity -of  heart,  and  righteousness 
of  life.  In  this  consists,  as  they  believe,  the  trans- 
cendent merit  of  the  gospel,  —  that  it  tends  above  all 
other  religions  to  this  result.  Nothing  is  so  near  to 
God,  or  brings  man  so  to  near  him,  as  this.  Every 
other  approach,  except  it  in  some  way  ministers  to  this, 
is  delusion.  Every  attempt  to  draw  near  to  him  by 
ecstasy  or  passion  is  a  vain  imagination ;  at  best,  a 
temporary  spasm.  There  is  no  true  union  with  God 
but  loving  and  loyal  obedience.  And  when  religion 
is  divorced  from  practical  goodness ;  when  this  most 
Christian  element  is  out  of  it ;  when  the  doctrinal 
interest  or  the  ecclesiastical  interest,  or  even  the  devo- 
tional interest,  supersedes  the  moral, — it  loses  its  prac- 
tical significance  ;  —  Christianity,  its  distinctive  value 
as  a  practical  mediator  between  the  human  and  divine. 
This  is  what  believers  of  the  class  I  am  considerinof 
find  and  prize  in  the  gospel  of  Christ.  To  them  it  is 
an  ethical  rather  than  a  sacramental  or  dogmatic  code, 
—  a  dispensation  of  grace  and  truth,  and  not  an  eccle- 
siastical rule. 

It  follows,  that,  in  their  conception,  the  person  of 
Christ  has  not  the  same  aspect  and  meaning  which  it 
has  in  most  ecclesiastic  and  dogmatic  systems.  The 
denial  of  supreme  worship  implies  the  denial  of  deity 
to  Jesus  in  the  would-be  orthodox  and  monophysite 
sense,  and  the  limitation  of  that  revered  personality 
within  the  bounds  of  historic  fact.  Viewed  historically, 
Christ  to  them  is  a  sacred  memory,  the  model  man  in 


254  ratio:n^al  Christianity. 

whom  was  the  fulness  of  the  Godhead ;  who  illustrated, 
as  no  other  has  done,  the  divine  humanity  which  he 
affirmed ;  who  alone  could  say  from  the  fulness  of  his 
moral  consciousness,  "  I  and  the  Father  are  one ; " 
and  who  therefore  remains  to  all  ages  a  standing  wit- 
ness of  the  height  to  w^hich  human  nature  has  attained ; 
the  Providential  type  of  spiritual  sonship,  of  the  adoption 
of  the  human  into  the  divine.  Viewed  in  the  present, 
Christ  to  them  is  a  holy  aim ;  the  ideal  Head  toward 
which  the  Church,  or  human  society,  is  to  grow,  "till 
we  all  come  unto  a  perfect  man,  unto  the  measure  of 
the  stature  of  the  fulness  of  Christ,"  —  the  ideal  Vine 
in  which  the  body  of  believers  is  rooted  and  grafted, 
and  by  union  with  whose  idea  they  are  made  fruitful 
of  good :  they  abiding  in  his  word  and  love,  his  word 
and  love  abiding  in  them.  This  is  what  Christ  is  to 
minds  of  this  class ;  a  method,  a  way,  the  approach  to 
God ;  not  a  vicarious  sanctity,  an  interposed  secondary 
person,  intercepting  and  superseding  the  Supreme. 

To  me  there  has  always  seemed,  in  the  views  and 
language  of  Christians  claiming  to  be  orthodox  on 
this  subject,  a  baleful  and  hopeless  confusion.  Their 
Christology  and  their  common  sense  —  the  dogmatic 
and  historical  conscience  —  conflict.  They  would  have 
their  Christ  to  be  "very  God,"  and  worship  him  as 
such,  and  still  retain  the  mediatorial  idea,  and  make  the 
Christ  serve  in  that  capacity  also.  But  the  two  uses 
are  incompatible.  In  the  region  of  dogmatic  we  may 
speak  of  two  natures  in  one  person,  and  invent  philo- 
sophic formulas  for  that  conception ;  we  may  say  that 
Christ  is  "  God-man,"  and  this  may  be  the  truest  word 
concerning   him,    the   truest   definition   of  the   Christ 


LBIITATION  OF  PERSONALITY  IN  CHRIST.  255 

ideally  considered.  But  practical  religion,  and  espe- 
cially private  devotion,  craves  more  precise  conceptions. 
If  God  is  one,  and  the  human  individual  is  one,  they 
cannot  both  be  the  same  one,  though  botli  may  unite 
in  one  appearance  {jcpoauiiov,  person)  ;  that  is,  the  visible, 
human  individual  may  personate  or  represent  tlie  invisi- 
ble God.  But  the  appearance  is  but  a  transient, 
earthly  phenomenon,  though  embodying  an  eternal 
idea ;  and  if  we  are  logically  honest,  and  in  the  spirit 
of  that  honesty  analyze  this  conception  of  the  God-man, 
we  shall  see  that  the  phrase  denotes  an  idea,  and  a  per- 
sonal appearance  in  the  scenes  of  time  embodying  that 
idea  ;  a  divine  demonstration,  not  the  individual  through 
whom  and  in  whom  that  demonstration  was  made. 
The  Christ  of  the  Gospel  is  that  demonstration,  —  God 
in  man.  The  image  which  Jesus  has  stamped  of  him- 
self on  the  Church  and  the  world  stands  for  that.  But 
when  from  the  Christ  of  the  Church  we  turn  to  the 
actual  elesus,  as  we  figure  him ;  when  we  think  of  him 
as  a  presently  existing  individual,  we  shall  see  that  this 
individual  must  be  one  of  three  things  :  1.  The  Supreme 
God;  2.  Neither  God  nor  man,  but  an  intermediate 
being ;   or,  3.  Pure  man. 

1.  If  we  say  that  Christ  is  Supreme  God,  we  not 
only  deny  a  presently  existing  Jesus  distinct  from  God, 
but  we  virtually  deny  that  any  such  individual  ever 
existed  (unless  we  suppose  him  annihilated  at  death). 
We  make  the  Christ  of  tlie  Gospel  history  a  mere  appa- 
rition, that  history  an  illusion,  —  a  phantasmagoria  with 
no  human  reality  subtending  it.  Tiiey  who  hold  this 
opinion  have  lost  their  Christ ;  not  in  the  sense  con- 
templated by  Paul  as  the  consummation  of  the  Christian 


256  RATIONAL   CHKISTIANITY. 

ages,  when  Christ  is  to  deliver  up  the  kingdom  to  the 
Father  ;  but  in  the  sense  that  there  is  and  was  no  Christ 
other  than  the  Father.  Instead  of  two  they  have  only 
one  ;  it  is  either  Christ  that  they  have  lost,  or  else  it  is 
God.  It  follows  further  from  this  view,  that  all  pray- 
ing to  God  in  the  name  of  Christ  is  glaring  contradic- 
tion, or  an  impious  mockery  of  devotion ;  addressing 
Christ,  and  using  him  as  a  third  person  at  the  same 
time.  There  should  be  no  confusion  in  prayer.  De- 
votion requires  for  the  being  addressed  a  simple,  how- 
ever imperfect  and  inadequate,  conception.  Dogmati- 
cally, we  may  speak  of  two  natures  in  one,  or  say  that 
the  Godhead  is  contained  in  two  persons,  or  in  three ; 
but,  practically,  we  cannot  address  one  person  as  two, 
or  as  three,  without  confusion  of  mind;  and  w^e  cannot 
address  two  persons,  or  three,  as  co-equal,  without 
polytheism. 

2.  If  we  say,  in  accordance  with  the  Arian  view,  that 
the  Christ  is  neither  God  nor  man,  but  a  being  distinct 
from  both,  we  remove  him  so  far  from  our  sympathies, 
and  all  our  associations  and  habits  of  thought ;  we  make 
him  so  unreal,  so  chimerical,  so  abnormal  a  being,  that 
we  know  not  how  to  adjust  ourselves  with  one  whom 
we  can  neither  adore  as  God  nor  sympathize  with  as 
man,  and  so  must  needs  lose  the  best  eiFect  of  his  idea. 

3.  If,  finally,  we  say  that  Jesus,  as  presently  ex- 
isting, is  pure  man,  a  glorified  human  spirit,  we  have 
a  precise  idea  in  our  minds,  and  a  definite  object  of  con- 
templation ;  a  being  with  whom  the  consciousness  of 
Christians  may  find  itself  in  true  relations,  but  still  a 
finite  being,  and  therefore  not  one  who  can  fully  satisfy 
the  craving  soul,  or  take  the  supreme  place  in  our  devo- 


LIMITATION   OF  PERSONALITY   IN   CHRIST.  257 

tions ;  and  though,  theoretically,  there  would  seem  to 
be  no  reason  why  prayer  should  not  be  addressed  to 
Christ,  and  though  we  readily  conceive  that  a  Christian 
soul  may  be  moved  so  to  pray,  yet  to  one  who  ration- 
ally ponders  the  matter,  it  will  probably  occur,  that 
the  feeling  which  prompts  one  man  to  offer  prayer  to 
a  glorified  Jesus  may  prompt  another  to  pray  to  a 
glorified  St.  Paul  or  St.  Augustine ;  that  the  principle 
which  justifies  the  one  will  justify  the  other,  will  cover 
the  broad  hagiolatry  of  the  Church  of  Rome.  More- 
over, it  might  seem  that  Christ  himself  has  forbidden 
prayer  to  himself,  in  those  words  of  his  :  "  In  that  day 
ye  shall  ask  nothing  of  me."  And  when,  above  all,  we 
recollect,  and  lay  it  to  heart,  that  the  one  chief  aim  of 
the  gospel  is  to  reconcile  and  unite  to  God,  — to  bring 
the  soul  into  conscious  relation  and  immediate  contact 
with  the  Father ;  then  all  dwelling  in  inferior  sanctities, 
all  pre-occupation  of  mind  and  heart  with  lesser  names, 
will  be  seen  to  be  a  traversing  of  that  intent,  and  con- 
trary to  the  doctrine  of  Christ.  If  "the  Son  can  do 
nothing  of  himself  but  what  he  seeth  the  Father  do  ;  " 
if  the  Son  can  give  nothing  but  what  he  receives,  — 
then  why  not  go  to  the  Father  at  once  ?  why  stop  short 
of  the  infinite  fulness?  Why  kneel  at  the  pool,  when 
through  the  pool  the  everlasting  prime  Fountain  invites 
every  soul  to  full  participation  of  the  underived,  super- 
nal grace? 

The  mystic  words  of  St.  Paul,  prefixed  to  this  chapter, 
seem  to  anticipate  the  view,  here  presented,  of  the  per- 
sonality of  Christ.  The  language  is  obscure,  its  im- 
port somewhat  uncertain.     Criticism  is  not  authorized 

17 


258  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

to  pronounce  definitively  concerning  it.  But  I  can  sup- 
pose, that  the  rapt  apostle,  discoursing  of  the  "  resur- 
rection" and  immortality,  and  rising,  in  his  argument 
on  this  sublime  theme,  to  the  height  of  prophetic  vision, 
foresaw  the  approaching  deification  of  the  Son  of  Man  ; 
divined  its  reason  and  necessity  in  the  counsels  of  God 
and  the  wants  of  the  Church ;  and  so  announced,  that 
Christ  "  must  reign  till  he  hath  put  all  things  under  his 
feet."  But,  casting  his  inspired  glance  along  the  line 
of  the  Christian  ages,  he  foresaw  that  this  deification 
would  be  temporary,  because  no  created  or  generated 
being  can  hold  for  ever  the  place  of  the  Supreme,  by 
whose  will  alone  he  can  hold  it  at  all ;  and  so  predicted 
"the  end,  when  Christ  shall  deliver  up  the  kingdom  to 
God,  even  the  Father,"  and  when  the  Son  himself 
should  "  be  subject  unto  Him  that  put  all  things  under 
him,  that  God  may  be  all  in  all." 

Assuming  this  to  be  the  true  interpretation,  the  first 
part  of  this  saying  has  been  signally  verified.  Its 
verification  has  been  the  chief  topic  of  the  doctrinal 
history  of  the  Church.  Christ  did  not  reign  as  God 
when  Paul  wrote  ;  he  did  so  reign  in  the  ages  which 
followed.  And  we  can  see,  in  the  retrospection  of  those 
ages,  how  needful  it  was,  for  the  triumph  and  perfect 
dominion  of  the  gospel,  that  Christ  should  be  the  God 
of  the  nations  that  renounced  for  his  sake  the  gods  of 
their  inheritance,  and  deserted  their  country's  altars. 
We  can  see  that  the  abstract  God  of  our  theology  — 
the  God  who  is  absolute  being  —  would  not  suflSce  for 
the  peoples  just  emerging  from  the  darkness  of  polythe- 
ism, and  used  to  succinct  and  concrete  divinities.  They 
needed  a  precise,  historical  God ;   one  to  lay  hold  of 


LIMITATION   OF  PERSONALITY  IN  CHRIST.  259 

with  their  conceptions,  one  whose  portrait  could  be 
painted  in  mortal  colors,  wliose  actuality  was  vouched 
by  mortal  witnesses  ;  a  God  of  whom  you  could  tell 
anecdotes,  and  show  the  birthplace  and  earthly  abode ; 
a  God  whose  being  was  not  an  inference,  or  fact  of 
revelation,  but  a  fact  of  history,  a  well-attested  human 
experience.  Such  a  God  the  Church  supplied  in  the 
Son  of  Mary,  as  Christian  tradition  presented  him ; 
the  divine  mystery,  "manifest  in  the  flesh,  justified  in 
the  spirit,  seen  of  angels,  preached  unto  the  Gentiles, 
believed  on  earth,  received  up  into  glory;"  the  being 
who  was  cradled  in  prodigy,  and  moved  in  an  element 
of  perpetual  marvel ;  whose  manger  angels  heralded, 
whose  sepulchre  angels  unsealed ;  whose  birth  into  this 
world  was  heavenly  condescension,  whose  going  out  of 
it  was  heavenly  triumph.  This  august  being  the  grateful 
adoration  of  the  Church,  and  the  will  of  the  Father, 
lifted  into  Godhead, — the  worthiest  figure  that  had 
ever  occupied  that  place.  And  there  he  reigned  from 
age  to  age,  and  put  all  things,  under  him.  All  the  gods 
of  the  nations  to  whom  his  word  came  he  put  under  his 
feet,  —  Olympian  Jove,  and  his  shining  progeny,  Phoe- 
bus Apollo,  great  Diana  of  the  Ephesians,  and  her 
Tyrian  counterpart,  "  Mooned  Ashtaroth,"  "  Peor  and 
Baalim,"  and  the  stormy  spirits  of  the  Norse  Wal- 
halla.  The  devils  quailed  before  his  sovereignty.  Sa- 
tan as  lightning  fell  from  heaven,  whole  mythologies 
withered  away,  the  forest  and  the  sea  and  the  lonely 
mountain-top  gave  up  their  divinities,  Death  and  Hell 
were  cast  into  the  burning  lake,  the  old  heavens  and 
the  former  earth  passed  away,  and  the  new  creation 
acknowledged  with  divine  honors  its  author  and  Lord. 


260  RATIONAL    CHRISTIANITY. 

So  truly  and  exceedingly  has  that  saying  of  Paul  hith- 
erto beep  fulfilled. 

As  to  what  remains, — the  predicted  end  when  Christ 
shall  deliver  up  the  kingdom  to  the  Father,  and  the 
Son  himself  be  put  under,  —  it  is  easy  to  speculate ; 
and  some  may  think  to  find  the  fulfilment  of  that 
prophecy  in  the  blank  denials  and  repudiations  of  a 
shallow  iconoclasm.  But  fulfilment  comes  not  by  way 
of  denial :  it  comes  by  complete  development.  It  is 
easy  to  speculate  and  easy  to  deny ;  it  requires  little 
wit  to  spurn  and  reject  an  old  belief  which  we  cannot 
rationalize  :  but  only  time  and  the  ever  -  progressive 
consciousness  of  Christendom  can  unfold,  and  only 
the  fully  unfolded  fact  can  rightly  interpret  the  folded 
truth  of  the  prophet's  word. 

Meanwhile,  this  truth  remains,  and  may  serve  as 
our  guide  in  these  inquiries ,  —  that  the  function  of 
the  person  is  historical,  and  therefore  transient.  In  the 
sj:)here  of  spiritual  contemplation,  no  personality  abides 
but  the  ever-becoming  personality  of  God,  conceived 
by  faith,  and  born  of  faith,  in  the  individual  soul.  Infi- 
nite and  underived  being  alone  can  satisfy  the  freely 
inquiring,  freely  aspiring.  Only  that  which  bounds  the 
uttermost  thought,  and  tops  the  boldest  imagination, 
can  fulfil  to  reason  and  faith  the  Idea  of  God.  What- 
ever derived  and  secondary  power  by  divine  permission 
may  hold  that  place  is  a  temporary  vicegerent,  occupy- 
ing a  borrowed  throne,  and  exercising  a  delegated  sway, 
which  he  must  finally  deliver  up  to  God,  "even  the 
Father."  —  "For  when,"  says  the  brave  apostle,  "he 
saith,  *  all  things  are  put  under,'  it  is  manifest  that  He 
is  excepted  which  did  put  all  things  under." 


m. 


MIEACLES. 


m. 

MIRACLES. 


"  Mais  il  faut  remarquer  que  ces  mots,  de  '  sur  humain '  et  de  *  sur- 
naturel,'  emprunt^s  a  notre  th^^ologie  mesquine,  n'avaient  pas  de  sens  dans 
la  haute  conscience  religieuse  de  Jdsus."  —  Renan,  Vie  de  Jesus. 


The  earliest  records  of  our  religion  —  the  books  of  the 
New  Testament  —  contain  accounts  of  certain  transac- 
tions to  which,  as  exceeding  the  ordinary  experience  of 
human  kind,  we  give  the  name  of  miracles ;  that  is, 
wonders. 

These  accounts,  in  time  past,  were  received  without 
question.  But  the  prevalence,  in  our  day,  of  the 
scientific  mind,  and  the  progress  of  critical  inquiry, 
have  brought  such  narratives  into  disrepute,  as  conflict- 
ino:  with  those  laws  of  nature  which  science  claims  to 
have  established.  The  events  in  question,  it  is  urged, 
cannot  be  explained  by  known  laws  :  they  have  no 
parallel  in  our  experience,  and  therefore  are  not  to  be 
received  as  historical. 

The  repugnance  to  miracles,  so  far  as  the  Christian 
records  are  concerned,  is  due,  in  part,  to  the  unwise 
use  which  modern  theologians  have  made  of  them  as 

proofs  of  divine  authority,  and  therefore  evidences  of 

[263] 


264  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

Christian  trutly  The  claim  of  the  gospel  to  be  a  divine 
dispensation  has  been  rested  upon  them.  The  uncer- 
tain evidence  of  human  testimony,  reported  by  uncertain 
tradition,  has  been  preferred  above  the  v^itness  of  the 
Spirit,  which  speaks  for  itself,  and  is  always  its  own 
demonstration.  This  is  all  wrong,  and  is  felt  to  be  so 
by  Christian  thinkers  at  this  day.  Miracles  are  value- 
less as  proofs  of  divine  authority,  because,  with  our 
views  of  such  matters,  it  is  easier  to  believe  in  the  thing 
to  be  proved  than  it  is  to  believe  in  the  alleged  proof. 
It  is  easier  to  believe  that  a  teacher  is  divinely  inspired, 
than  it  is  to  believe  that  he  exhibits  any  prodigy  which 
contradicts,  or  seems  to  contradict,  the  possibilities  of 
nature. 

In  the  age  which  produced  the  writings  of  the  New 
Testament,  when  the  laws  and  limits  of  nature  were 
less  generally  understood,  when  belief  was  less  critical, 
and  marvels  of  all  kinds  more  readily  received,  this 
difficulty,  of  course,  did  not  exist  in  the  same  degree. 
Yet,  even  then,  a  mind  that  was  sceptically  inclined,  or 
predetermined  against  the  revelations  of  the  gospel, 
would  not  have  been  likely  to  be  convinced  by  the 
demonstration  of  a  power  which  many  in  that  day  were 
supposed  to  possess,  and  a  class  of  works  which  many, 
beside  Jesus,  assumed  to  perform.  In  fact,  so  common 
in  the  ancient  world  was  the  claim  of  miracle,  that  a 
statute  of  Moses  expressly  provides  against  receiving 
that  as  a  test  of  prophetic  truth. 

Nor  does  it  appear  that  Jesus  aimed  to  force  convic- 
tion in  that  way.  Whatever  may  be  the  truth  con- 
cerning the  miracles  ascribed  to  him  in  the  New 
Testament,  they  are  represented  as  works  of  love.     To 


MIRACLES.  265 

suppose  them  performed  for  any  other  purpose  is  to 
substitute  an  inferior  motive  in  the  place  of  that  divine 
beneficence,  which  gives  to  these  acts,  if  real,  their 
highest  value.  No  unprejudiced  person  can  read  the 
record,  and  say  that  Jesus  ever  sought  to  surprise  men 
into  belief;  that  he  ever  stormed  the  senses  in  order  to 
carry  the  heart.  Had  such  been  the  motive,  the  mira- 
cles would  have  been  in  accordance  therewith  :  they 
would  all  have  been  of  that  portentous  kind  which  he 
repudiated  when  urged  to  exhibit  "a  sign  from  heaven." 
Had  it  been  his  policy  to  work  conviction  by  appeal  to 
marvels,  he  would  have  multiplied  marvels  where  in- 
credulity was  greatest.  He  would  have  hurled  prodigy 
upon  prodigy  at  the  head  of  unbelief,  until  it  should 
capitulate,  and  cry,  "Lord,  I  believe."  But  such  is 
not  the  nature  of  man,  and  such  is  not  the  nature  of 
faith.  The  senses  do  not  command  the  soul.  No  evi- 
dence of  the  senses  will  convince  a  man  of  that  which 
all  within  him  contradicts.  The  senses,  in  such  cases, 
are  suborned  by  the  will,  and  refuse  to  testify  truly. 
Or,  if  the  senses  say  true,  the  understanding,  like  a 
tricksy  advocate,  has  always  an  argument  at  hand  to 
invalidate  their  testimony,  —  can  always  put  a  contrary 
interpretation  upon  it,  or  find  some  method  of  evading 
the  conclusion  to  which  it  points.  Two  persons  of 
different  persuasion,  and  different  tendencies  of  mind, 
shall  witness  the  same  phenomenon  without  seeing  the 
same  thing ;  they  shall  state  it  differently  in  their  re- 
ports ;  they  shall  draw  entirely  different  conclusions 
from  it. 

There  is  no   such  connection  between   supernatural 
power  and  spiritual  truth,  as  would  make  a  miracle  a 


26Q  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

sufficient  and  infallible  test  of  divine  revelation.  A 
man  may  work  wonders  before  my  eyes.  I  know  not 
by  what  means  he  operates,  nor  whence  he  derives  his 
wonder-working  power.  But,  without  other  evidence, 
I  shall  not  therefore  consider  him  a  divine  person,  or 
divinely  commissioned  prophet.  I  shall  not  receive  his 
doctrine,  if  it  contradicts  the  voice  in  my  heart. 

Let  me  fetch  an  illustration  from  our  own  time.  We 
have  heard  of  certain  phenomena  —  perhaps  have  wit- 
nessed them  —  known  as  "  spmtual  manifestations  ;  " 
such  as  moving  of  furniture  by  invisible  agency,  deto- 
nations syllabling  words  and  names,  involuntary  writ- 
ing, and  the  like.  These  phenomena  are  affirmed  by 
those  who  pursue  them  to  be  the  work  of  invisible  per- 
sonalities called  "spirits."  We  have  here  a  species  of 
miracle  as  well  attested  as  such  things  can  be.  It  is 
not  my  purpose  to  discuss  these  phenomena.  Suppose 
them  real,  not  empty  illusions,  and  suppose  them  to  be 
the  work  of  the  agency  to  which  they  are  ascribed : 
the  question  is,  what  evidence  do  they  furnish  of  pro- 
phetic wisdom  or  spiritual  truth  ?  None  whatever,  that 
I  can  discern.  I  can  see  no  connection  between  the 
prodigies  in  question  and  the  truths  of  religion,  or  any 
other  truths.  Invisibility  is  to  me  no  pledge  of  superior 
wisdom.  The  word  of  a  wise  and  good  man,  speaking 
from  the  fulness  of  a  sound  mind  and  an  honest  heart, 
communicating  by  natural  organs,  unaccompanied  by 
any  extraordinary  manifestations,  would  weigh  with  me 
more  than  the  utterances  of  a  hundred  mediums,  pur- 
porting to  speak  by  dictation  from  the  shades.  And,  if 
a  doctrine  were  propounded  to  me,  through  such  a 
medium,    which    contradicted    my   own    conviction,    I 


MIRACLES.  267 

should  certainly  have  no  hesitation  in  rejecting  it, 
though  I  might  not  be  able  to  disprove  the  dictation, 
and  though  I  should  admit  the  marvels  appealed  to  in 
defence  of  that  origin.  I  should  say,  I  know  not  what 
latent  powers  there  may  be  in  the  air  or  the  human 
organism,  by  which  such  wonders  are  effected;  but  the 
doctrine  is  all  the  more  questionable  which  comes  to  me 
from  such  a  source.  I  should  say,  that  these  invisibles 
—  if  spirits  they  are  who  dictate  such  stuff — were 
more  in  need  of  instruction  themselves  than  able  to 
impart  it ;  and  that  if  they  are  really,  as  is  sometimes 
claimed,  the  great  departed  who  deliver  themselves 
thus,  then  to  die,  for  them,  has  not  been  gain :  they 
have  lost  the  wit  which  they  had  in  the  body,  and 
verify  the  melancholy  saying,  that  "a  living  dog  is 
better  than  a  dead  lion." 

Had  Jesus  been  disposed  to  act  on  the  faith  of  men 
by  means  of  marvels,  he  yet  knew  too  well  what  was 
in  man  not  to  know  that  the  senses  do  not  lead,  but 
follow,  the  convictions  of  the  heart ;  that  faith  is  not  the 
offspring  of  miracles,  but  miracles,  of  faith.  Had  he 
been  disposed  to  enforce  belief  by  signs  and  wonders, 
he  would  have  multiplied  those  wonders  where  unbelief 
was  greatest.  So  far  from  this,  an  evangelist  tells  us, 
with  great  frankness,  that  Jesus  "did  not  many  mighty 
works  "  in  his  own  country,  "  because  of  their  unbelief." 
Do  you  wonder  at  such  incredulity?  The  wonder  is 
rather  that  so  many  believed  on  him.  To  one  who 
regarded  only  the  circumstances  of  the  man,  what  was 
there  to  inspire  trust  ?  His  fellow-citizens  saw  in  him 
a  townsman  as  lowly  born,  as  poorly  circumstanced,  as 
themselves.     The  people  of  Judea  saw  in  him  a  Gali- 


268  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

lean  whose  origin  seemed  a  presumption  against  him. 
There  wanted  the  prestige  of  the  Pharisee,  the  learning 
of  the  scribe.  There  was  a  rumor  of  wonderful  cures ; 
but  rumor  is  so  apt  to  exaggerate  !  Did  he  cast  out 
devils  ?  It  was  by  Beelzebub,  the  prince  of  devils.  Do 
we  wonder  that  Jesus  was  so  judged  by  his  age  ?  Was 
there  ever  an  age  that  would  have  judged  otherwise? 
Was  there  ever  an  age  that  would  have  been  more 
ready  to  receive  such  a  prophet,  to  see  the  divine  in 
him,  than  were  his  contemporaries?  Regarding  him 
from  our  point  of  view,  it  seems  to  us,  that  such  purity, 
such  devotion,  such  beneficence,  would  have  won  our 
belief,  had  we  come  within  their  sphere.  It  is  easy  to 
see  these  qualities  in  the  past ;  but  to  see  them  in  the 
present,  to  see  them  in  one  who  offends  our  cherished 
convictions  or  pre-conceptions,  is  quite  another  thing. 
If  we  had  lived  in  those  days,  we  should  have  seen 
through  our  prejudices  as  those  people  did.  We  should 
have  seen  what  our  prejudices  permitted,  and  nothing 
else.  Miracles  would  not  have  convinced  us,  if  other- 
wise indisposed  to  believe.  It  is  folly  to  imagine  that 
we  could  be  made  to  believe  against  our  wills  by  any 
material  sign.  Our  unbelief  would  put  its  own  con- 
struction on  that  sign.  We  should  find  an  explanation 
of  it  congenial  with  our  views.  We  should  see  it 
through  the  medium  of  our  prepossessions.  We  should 
see  it,  not  as  it  was,  but  as  we  are. 

No  one^who  rejects  the  divine  origin  of  Christianity 
will  ever  be  brought  to  believe  in  it  on  the  ground  of 
its  miracles,  for  the  obvious  reason  that  they  never* can 
be  proved  to  the  satisfaction  of  unbelief.  No  amount 
of  evidence  is  sufficient  for  that  purpose.     A  miracle  is 


MIRACLES.  2G9 

insusceptible  of  historic  proof,  because,  as  a  matter  of 
external  evidence  to  be  weighed  in  the  balance  of  prob- 
abilities, the  a  prio7'i  presumption  against  such  facts 
outweighs  any  testimony  that  can  be  adduced  in  its 
support.  The  Princess  Ulrica  of  Sweden  wished  to 
test  the  reality  of  Swedenborg's  intercourse  with  the 
spiritual  world.  She  asked  him  to  report  to  her 
the  substance  of  a  conversation  which  she  had  had  with 
her  brother,  a  short  time  previous  to  his  decease,  of  the 
nature  of  which  she  was  sure  that  no  living  person 
could  have  any  knowledge.  A  little  while  after,  the 
seer,  to  her  amazement,  —  so  the  story  goes,  —  fulfilled 
her  request.  But  she  would  not  accept  the  conclusion 
which  seemed  to  follow  from  that  test.  Her  answer 
was,  "How  M.  v.  Swedenborg  has  possessed  himself 
of  this  knowledge,  I  cannot  guess  ;  but  I  do  not  believe 
that  he  has  conversed  with  my  departed  brother." 

The  presumption  against  the  supernatural  is  not  only 
stronger,  with  those  who  disincline  to  believe,  than 
human  testimony  ;  it  is  even  stronger  than  the  evidence 
of  our  own  senses,  as  is  shown  in  many  remarkable 
cases  where  individuals  have  been  unable  to  see  what 
others  saw,  or  unable  to  believe  that  they  had  seen  it. 
Shakespeare  understood  the  human  heart  when  he  made 
Hamlet,  after  conversing  with  the  ghost  of  his  father, 
speak  of  "  the  undiscovered  land  from  whose  bourne  no 
traveller  returns."  It  is  in  vain  to  appeal  to  ocular 
demonstration,  — to  say  that  seeing  is  believing.  Un- 
belief will  see  with  the  eyes  of  unbelief;  for  we  can  see 
only  as  we  are. 

Let  us  bring  the  case  home  to  ourselves.  Suppose 
a  prophet  sent  to  our  time,  and  reported  to  work  mira- 


270  RATIONAL   CHEISTIANITY. 

cles  among  us.  He  is  said  to  liave  raised  the  dead. 
Would  the  sceptically  inclined  give  credit  to  such  a 
report  vipon  any  conceivable  testimony  that  might  be 
adduced  in  its  support?  Nay,  suppose  them  to  have 
witnessed  it  with  their  own  eyes,  —  to  have  stood  by 
the  graveside  of  some  Lazarus  when  the  inhumed  came 
forth,  would  they  even  then  believe  that  they  had  seen 
the  dead  arise  ?  Would  they  not  find  some  explanation 
of  that  or  any  similar  phenomenon,  wliich  should  strip 
it  of  its  miraculous  character,  and  range  it  with  the 
uniform  experience  of  mankind?  Only  when  we  had 
been  brought  into  contact  with  the  prophet  himself, 
and  had  read  divinity  in  the  light  of  his  eye,  and  im- 
bibed its  influence  by  coming  within  its  sphere,  and 
been  all  penetrated  with  reverence  and  love,  —  only 
then  should  we  —  I  will  not  say  believe  in  those  mira- 
cles —  but  only  then  should  we  be  in  that  moral 
condition  in  which  belief  in  miracles  is  possible  to  dis- 
ciplined and  intelligent  minds.  We  should  then  have 
gone  behind  the  miracle,  and  conversed  with  its  source.. 
We  should  have  stood  at  the  power-fountain  of  miracu- 
lous goodness  to  which  all  things  are  possible.  Hap- 
pily, we  are  so  constituted  that  we  can  believe  in 
somethino:  hisrher  than  the  senses  and  the  understand- 
ino".  We  can  believe  in  somethins;  which  does  not 
admit  of  demonstration.  What  would  become  of  us, 
embosomed  in  this  material,  with  no  nurture  but  hard 
facts,  and  no  light  to  guide  us  but  our  bounded  experi- 
ence ;  —  with  no  mystic  border  to  our  existence  in  the 
flesh,  and  no  horizon  of  celestial  ether  to  our  day? 

The  arjxument  which  Hume  draws  from  the  unde- 
monstrableness  of  miracles  is  conclusive  only  against 


MIRACLES.  271 

the  use  of  them  as  evidence,  not  against  the  facts  them- 
selves. It  does  not  follow,  because  a  miracle  is  insus- 
ceptible of  proof,  that  a  miracle  is  impossible.  The 
understanding  tolerates  nothing  supernatural :  and  we 
do  right  to  explain  what  can  be  explained,  by  known 
causes, — to  suppose  no  miracle  where  other  supposi- 
tion will  serve ;  as  far  and  as  fast  as  possible,  to  trans- 
late the  supernatural  into  the  natural. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  we  are  poor  creatures  if 
nothing  is  dreamed  of  in  our  philosophy  but  square 
and  compass,  and  mechanical  laws  ;  if  our  logic  re- 
jects every  thing  that  cannot  be  measured  by  feet  and 
inches,  and  weighed  in  market  -  scales ;  if  there  is  no 
corner  in  our  mind  or  heart  where  faith  in  miracles 
can  lodge. 

And  now,  a  word  concerning  the  objection  to  miracle, 
dra^vn  from  "  the  order  of  nature,"  so  called,  —  the 
alleo;ed  inviolableness  of  natural  laws.  The  arojument 
amounts  to  no  more  than  an  a  j^rioi^i  presumption 
against  any  event  which  contradicts  the  common  expe- 
rience. It  is  not  conclusive,  and  cannot  be  accepted 
as  proof,  without  absolute  assurance  that  all  the  laws 
and  possibilities  of  nature  and  spirit  are  known  to  us. 
But  who  will  pretend  to  such  assurance?  Who  will 
pretend,  that  his  knowledge  embraces  all  the  possibili- 
ties of  nature?  Who  will  pretend,  that  all  the  possi- 
bilities of  the  human  organism,  much  less  of  the  human 
spirit,  are  known  to  him  ?  A  mathematician  demon- 
strated by  mechanical  laws  the  impossibiUty  of  the  leaps 
performed  by  athletes  on  the  stage  :  they  contradicted 
the  order  of  nature.     And  they  were  repeated  night 


272  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

after  night.  One  law  overrules  and  subordinates 
another  in  the  daily  experience  of  life.  I  contradict 
the  law  of  gravitation  whenever  I  jump  from  the 
ground.  Whenever  I  will  to  hold  my  breath,  I  con- 
tradict the  known  laws  of  the  human  orsfanism.  What 
we  call  the  order  of  nature  is  simply  a  convenient 
formula ;  safe  enough  in  its  ordinary  applications,  but 
a  mere  illusion  when  urojed  as  alone  conclusive  ao-ainst 
extraordinary  events.  What  we  call  the  order  of  na- 
ture is  but  the  statement,  in  objective  terms,  of  the 
limitation  of  our  human  experience.  To  one  who  had 
never  seen  or  heard  of  an  eclipse  of  the  sun,  the  first 
experience  of  that  phenomenon  would  be  a  violation  of 
the  order  of  nature.  It  would  be  just  as  correct  to 
affirm  that  the  method  of  nature  is  miracle,  as  it  is 
to  affirm  with  some  that  "  the  method  of  nature  is  not 
miracle,  but  law,"  if  by  miracle  we  understand  the 
unprecedented,  or  a  new  creation.  The  new  is  as 
much  the  result  of  law  as  the  old  ;  the  unprecedented, 
as  much  as  our  most  familiar  experience  ;  a  miracle,  as 
much  as  the  constancy  of  things.  The  experience  of  a 
few  thousand  years  affiDrds  no  warrant  for  pronouncing 
dogmatically  what  is  or  is  not  a  violation  of  the  "  order 
of  nature,"  —  an  order  of  which  the  catastrophes  and 
cataclysms  known  to  geology,  and  distanced  by  mil- 
lions of  years,  are  as  much  a  constituent  part  as  the 
rising  and  setting  of  the  daily  sun.  In  Babbage's  cal- 
culating machine,*  a  law  of  increase  which  had  oper- 
ated, with  unbroken  uniformity,  in  a  hundred  million  and 
one  instances,  is  overruled  in  the  hundred  million  and 

*  See  "  Vestiges  of  Creation,"  American  edition,  page  156. 


MIRACLES.  273 

second  instance  by  another  law  coming  in  and  changing 
the  rate  of  increase  from  one  to  ten  thousand  at  a  sin- 
gle leap.  That  new  term  was  as  much  a  part  of  the 
constitution  of  the  machine,  as  much  in  the  order  of  its 
mechanism,  as  the  uniform  regularity  of  the  hundred 
million  and  one  instances  which  had  preceded  it.  In 
the  dateless  mechanism  of  the  universe,  the  rarest  ex- 
ception is  just  as  legitimate  as  the  rule ;  and  in  human 
life,  for  aught  we  know,  there  may  be  exceptional  ex- 
periences, exceptional  powers,  exceptional  souls,  which 
are  just  as  much  a  part  of  the  divine  order  as  the  most 
familiar  events.  It  ill  becomes  man,  whose  history 
bears  no  larger  proportion  to  the  age  of  the  world  than 
the  life  of  the  ephemera  bears  to  recorded  time,  to 
speak  too  confidently  of  the  order  of  nature. 

"  But  is  not  a  real  miracle  simply  a  violation  of  the 
laws  of  nature?  ask  several.  Whom  I  answer,"  says 
Carlyle,  "with  this  new  question.  What  are  the  laws 
of  nature?  To  me,  perhaps  the  rising  of  one  from  the 
dead  were  no  violation  of  these  laws,  but  a  confirma- 
tion,—  were  some  far  deeper  law  now  first  penetrated 
into,  and  by  spiritual  force,  even  as  the  rest  have  all 
been,  brought  to  bear  on  us  with  its  material  force." 
"But  is  it  not  the  deepest  law  of  nature  that  she  be 
constant?  cries  an  illuminated  class.  Is  not  the  ma- 
chine of  the  universe  fixed  to  move  by  unalterable 
rules?  Probable  enough,  good  friends.  .  .  .  And  now 
of  you,  too,  I  make  the  old  inquiry,  what  those  same 
unalterable  rules,  forming  the  complete  statute-book  of 
nature,  may  possibly  be.  .  .  .  Have  any  deepest  scien- 
tific individuals  dived  down  to  the  foundations  of  the 
universe,  and  gauged  every  thing  there  ?    Did  the  Mak- 

18 


274  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

er  take  them  into  his  counsel,  that  they  read  his  ground- 
plan  of  the  incompreliensible  All,  and  can  say,  This 
stands  marked  therein,  and  no  more  than  this?  Alas  ! 
not  in  anywise.  These  scientific  individuals  have  been 
nowhere  but  where  we  also  are, — have  seen  some  hand- 
breadths  deeper  than  we  see  into  the  deep  that  is  in- 
finite, without  bottom  as  without  shore." — "The  course 
of  nature's  phases  on  this  little  fraction  of  a  planet  is 
partially  -  known  to  us  ;  but  who  knows  what  deeper 
courses  these  depend  on,  —  what  infinitely  larger  cycle 
(of  causes)  our  little  epicycle  revolves  on?  To  the 
minnow,  every  cranny  and  pebble  and  quality  and  acci- 
dent of  its  little  creek  may  have  become  familiar ;  but 
does  the  minnow  understand  the  ocean-tides  and  pe- 
riodic currents,  the  trade-winds  and  monsoons,  and 
moon's  eclipses,  by  all  which  the  condition  of  its  little 
creek  is  regulated,  and  may,  from  time  to  time  (unmi- 
raculously  enough),  be  quite  overset  and  reversed? 
Such  a  minnow  is  man,  —  his  ocean  the  immeasurable 
All ;  his  monsoons  and  periodic  currents  the  mysterious 
course  of  Providence  through  aeons  of  jeons." 

The  radical  mistake  in  the  scientific  objection  to 
miracles  consists  in  defining  a  miracle  to  be  a  violation 
of  the  laws  of  nature.  Such  a  definition  must  needs 
provoke  the  opposition  of  all  whose  function  it  is  to 
ascertain  and  promulgate  natural  laws.  Suppose  we 
define  it,  an  effect  from  an  unknown  cause,  or  the 
operation  of  an  unknown  law,  subordinating  or  holding 
in  abeyance  a  known  one.  So  defined,  its  incredibility 
is  made  to  consist  in  its  unwontedness,  which  may  fur- 
nish a  presumption  against  the  alleged  fact,  but  cannot 
be  considered  a  valid  refutation.      The  unknown  law 


MIRACLES.  275 

may  Be  conceived  as  a  spiritual  fact  beyond  the  reach 
of  natural  science,  —  as  belonging  to  that  region  of 
forces  and  experiences,  which,  in  current  phraseology, 
is  termed  "supernatural."  That  phrase  "supernatural," 
however,  must  not  be  construed  as  unnatural  or  con- 
tranatural,  but  only  as, designating  a  higher  plane  of 
the  universal  Will,  which  comprehends  in  one  omni- 
present, omnipotent  agency  the  seen  and  the  unseen, 
the  world  of  causes  and  the  world  of  effects.  The  real 
final  and  efficient  cause  of  every  event  is  the  will  of 
God.  All  causes  and  laws  which  science  knows,  and 
all  which  science  does  not  know,  are  but  different 
phases  of  the  one  Supreme. 

I  am  far  from  maintaining  that  belief  in  miracles  is  a 
necessary  article  of  Christian  faith.  I  only  protest 
against  the  crudeness  of  that  doo-matism  which  affirms 
d  priori  the  impossibihty  of  all  that  cannot  be  ex- 
plained by  known  laws,  or  that  does  not  agree  with 
universal  experience,  and  exalts  its  idol  of  the  tribe,  its 
misconceived  "  order  of  nature,"  above  the  incalculable 
power  of  the  spirit. 

I  distinguish,  moreover,  in  the  so-called  miracles  of 
the  New  Testament,  between  the  essential  fact  and  the 
manner  in  which  it  is  presented  in  the  record.  I  con- 
ceive that  a  nucleus  of  historic  truth,  in  a  credulous 
age,  may  gather  to  itself  a  mythic  embodiment  which  is 
questionable.  Intelligent  criticism  must  separate,  if 
possible,  the  one  from  the  other.  For  criticism  has  its 
legitimate  function  in  relation  to  these  as  to  other  parts 
of  the  Sacred  Writings,  and  to  all  writings.  But  legiti- 
mate criticism  has  also  its  limitations,  and  must  not 
assume  to  rule  out  in  the  mass  whatever  confficts  witli 


276  RATIONAL   CHEISTIANITY. 

the  critic's  prepossessions,  and  only  because  of  diose 
prepossessions.  It  must  not  reject,  on  the  ground  of 
imperfect  evidence,  what  does  not  admit,  in  the  nature 
of  things,  of  any  other. 

Not  only  is  a  miracle  insusceptible  of  proof,  but 
revelation  itself  is  insusceptible  of  proof,  —  of  any  other 
proof  than  its  own  interior  light.  Revelation  tran- 
scends, and  must  transcend,  demonstration.  This  is  its 
specific  distinction,  —  without  which  it  is  not  revela- 
tion, but  philosopliy,  — that  it  speaks  with  self-evident 
authority.  Christianity  has  been  more  injured  than 
aided  by  the  indiscreet  attempts  of  its  defenders  to 
ground  its  authority  on  external  proofs.  The  misstate- 
ments of  unbelievers  should  be  exposed,  their  false 
conclusions  refuted;  but,  beyond  this,  all  so-called 
"  evidences  of  Christianity "  are  worthless  and  vain. 
That  would  be  a  very  insufficient  religion  which  could 
be  proved  by  testimony  exterior  to  itself.  If  it  does 
not  speak  with  authority  above  all  others,  it  s]3eaks  in 
vain. 

Attempts  to  prove  the  truth  of  Christianity  are  like 
attempts  to  prove  the  existence  of  light.  The  light 
shines,  and  proves  itself  by  shining.  It  is  its  own 
demonstration,  and  no  demonstration  can  make  it 
clearer.  So  this  moral  light  —  the  light  of  the  gospel 
—  which  shines  into  every  soul  that  is  willing  to  receive 
it,  and  which  makes  our  soul's  day,  —  what  can  we 
say  of  it  that  shall  be  so  convincing  as  itself  ?  If 
we  have  any  other  argument  more  cogent  than  that,  we 
have  a  hioher  revelation,  and  need  not  Its  liij^ht. 

There  may  be  errors  respecting  the  nature  of  the 
light,  and  false  theories  there  may  be  concerning  its 


MIRACLES.  277 

fiource ;  but  what  of  that  ?  Astronomy  may  be  mis- 
taken in  some  of  its  calculations  :  is  the  sun,  on  that  ac- 
count, less  glorious  or  less  dear?  I  need  no  astronomy 
to  tell  me  what  a  blessing  it  is.  And  suppose  we  have 
not,  in  these  biographies,  unmixed  historical  truth ; 
that  some  errors  and  misstatements  have  crept  into 
the  records ;  —  is  the  character  of  Christ,  on  that  ac- 
count, less  noble,  or  his  word  less  divine?  The  ques- 
tion is  not  whether  Jesus  said  precisely  this,  or  did 
precisely  that,  in  each  particular  case ;  but  whether 
Christianity,  on  the  whole,  is  divine,  —  whether  this 
light,  which  for  so  many  ages  has  irradiated  the  world, 
and  given  us  such  guidance  as  we  have  had  in  spiritual 
things,  is  God's  truth,  —  a  ray  of  heaven  conducting  to 
endless  day,  or  a  meteor  born  of  the  night,  and  mis- 
leading the  blind.  And  this  is  not  a  question  of  logic, 
but  a  question  of  experience,  which  every  soul  must 
answer  for  itself.  Christianity  is  not  a  matter  of  rec- 
ords and  parchments,  but  a  light  and  a  life  :  which,  if 
a  man  has  it  not,  no  logic  can  reason  into  him ;  and 
which,  if  a  man  has  it,  no  logic  can  reason  out  of  him. 
Nay,  if  you  could  prove  that  this  record  which  we  have 
of  the  sayings  and  doings  of  Jesus  is  a  fable  and  a 
myth,  even  then  you  would  not  have  destroyed  Chris- 
tianity. In  that  case,  I  should  say.  Whether  fable  or 
fact,  the  mind  that  could  conceive  and  give  to  the 
world  such  a  portrait  as  that  of  the  Christ,  is  itself 
the  Christ.  The  product  of  that  mind  would  still  be 
the  wisdom  and  the  power  of  God.  Suppose  you  could 
prove  that  no  such  person  as  Michael  Angelo  ever 
existed  ;  that  the  name  is  not  historic,  but  mythic ;  the 
tradition  we  have  of  him  a  fable ;  —  the  Church  of 


278  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

St.  Peter's  would  still  be  the  wonder  of  the  world,  and 
the  mind  that  planned  it  a  master  mind.  However 
we  may  speculate  concerning  its  origin,  the  Christian 
Church,  —  that  stupendous  fabric  of  which  St.  Peter's 
is  a  feeble  type,  —  that  august  temple  in  which  so 
many  ages  have  knelt  and  prayed,  —  stands,  and  will 
stand,  in  spite  of  criticism.  Christianity  is  :  it  is  a 
fixed  fact,  —  a  part  of  the  round  world.  And  when  I 
consider  what  it  is,  and  what  it  has  been ;  how  many 
millions  of  believing  souls  have  found  peace  in  its 
doctrine,  and  freedom  in  its  spirit ;  to  how  many  it  has 
been  their  guide  in  life,  and  their  stay  in  death ;  and 
how  it  has  changed  the  face  of  the  world ;  —  it  seems 
to  me  a  small  thing,  in  view  of  all  this  power  and 
glory,  to  quarrel  about  the  record,  and  fight  against 
miracles,  with  this  miracle  of  all  time  staring  us  in, 
the  face. 

Some  of  the  miracles  recorded  in  the  IS^ew  Testa- 
ment I  cannot  receive  in  the  sense  of  the  narrative : 
but  I  believe  in  the  possibility  of  miracles;  i.e.,  of 
works  transcending  common  experience.  I  believe  in 
them  because  I  believe  that  spiritual  powers  are  su- 
perior to  physical,  and  may  hold  them  in  subjection  ; 
because  I  believe  that  the  soul  is  stronger  than  material 
nature,  and  may  command  it  when  it  truly  commands 
itself;  because  I  see  in  the  person  of  Jesus  a  greater 
miracle  than  any  of  the  works  recorded  of  him.  When 
I  think  of  the  greater,  I  can  easily  believe  the  less.  I 
contemplate  the  portrait  of  Jesus  as  presented  in  the 
gospel;  and  it  seems  to  me  so  great  and  real,  that 
material  nature,  with  its  uses  and  forces,  looks  shadowy 
beside  it;    so  solid  and  commanding,  that  all  things 


MIRACLES.  279 

must  needs  be  subject  to  it.  And,  after  all,  I  find  in 
miracles  no  difficulty  greater  than  I  encounter  when  I 
reject  them.  I  know  of  no  canon  of  criticism  by  which 
I  can  eliminate  every  thing  miraculous  from  the  record, 
and  yet  retain  the  rest.  If  I  reject  them,  I  must  reject 
the  whole ;  and,  rejecting  the  whole,  I  do  such  violence 
to  historical  evidence  as  would  undermine  all  history, 
and  annihilate  the  past. 

At  the  same  time,  I  would  not  be  bound  to  a  rigor- 
ous construction  of  the  letter  of  the  narrative  in  every 
case  in  which  a  miraculous  event  is  represented  in  the 
text.  I  will  not  suffer  my  judgment  to  be  brought  into 
bondage  to  a  letter.  We  have  not,  in  these  writings, 
contemporary  documents  ;  but  later  productions,  into 
which  it  is  fair  to  suppose  that  some  errors  may  have 
found  their  way.  Whatever  is  written  is  open  to  criti- 
cism ;  for  the  soul  is  greater  than  any  scripture,  and 
nothing  can  be  more  foreign  from  the  spirit  of  Chris- 
tianity than  a  slavish  interpretation  of  its  records. 
The  intelliG:ent  reader  who  brins^s  to  the  New  Testa- 
ment  a  candid  temper  and  an '  ordinary  share  of  under- 
standing will  make  such  allowance  as  may  be  needful 
to  reconcile  the  credit  of  the  record  with  the  credibiUty 
of  the  facts  recorded.  He  will  separate  what  is  essen- 
tial in  the  record  from  what  is  incidental ;  the  central 
fact  from  the  form  in  which  it  appears.  He  will  not 
always  see  a  miracle  where  the  narrative  has  that  look ; 
and,  where  he  acknowledges  a  miracle,  he  will  not 
always  accept  the  common  interpretation.  In  a  word, 
he  will  give  due  honor  to  this  memorial  of  a  heavenly 
life,  without  doing  unnecessary  violence  to  reason  and 
common  sense. 


280  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

But  be  it  remembered,  that  common  sense  and  com- 
mon experience  are  nut  the  sufficient  and  only  measure 
of  spiritual  truth ;  and  that,  unless  by  the  power  of 
faith  and  the  power  of  the  spirit  we  can  raise  ourselves 
to  a  plane  of  vision  above  the  level  of  ordinary  life,  the 
divinest  word  that  ever  yet  found  utterance  in  human 
speech,  or  embodied  itself  in  human  life,  will  speak  to 
us  in  vain. 


IV. 
THE   REVELATION   OF  THE   SPIRIT. 


IV. 

THE  REVELATION  OF  THE   SPHIIT. 


The  New  Testament  speaks  of  "  the  Spirit "  very  much 
as  the  Old  Testament  speaks  of  Jehovah,  or  "the 
Lord."  Where  the  Old  Testament  says,  "The  Lord 
spoke,"  or  "The  word  of  the  Lord  came,"  to  this  or  that 
prophet,  the  New  Testament  substitutes  Spirit.  "Jesus 
was  led  by  the  Spirit  into  the  wilderness."  —  "  The  Spirit 
said  to  Philip."  —  "The  Spirit  said  to  Peter,"  &c.  &c. 
The  same  thing  is  meant  in  both  cases,  but  the  different 
phraseology  marks  a  difference  between  the  two  dispen- 
sations. The  same  fact,  the  same  power,  is  differently 
conceived.  In  one  case,  it  is  formal,  concrete,  —  an 
individual.  In  the  other,  it  is  liberal  and  diffusive,  — 
an  influence.*  When  the  Jew  thought  of  his  Jehovah, 
it  was  somewhat  as  the  Gentile  thought  of  his  Jove. 
He  thought  of  him  as  a  powerful  individual,  as  a  wise 
and  strong  man.  When  the  evangelists  thought  of  the 
Spirit,  they  thought  of  it  as  a  breath,  a  vision,  a  whis- 
per in  the  heart ;  a  subtile  influence  informing  the  mind, 
inspiring  the  will,  directing  the  life. 

The  personification  of  the  Spirit  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment is  merely  rhetorical ;  but  the  Church,  not  satisfied 

[283] 


284  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

with  a  figure  of  speech,  converted  the  rhetoric  into 
dogma.  They  constituted  the  Spirit  a  distinct  person 
in  the  Godhead.  No  harm  in  this,  if  by  "person"  is 
meant  nothing  more  than  a  mode  of  manifestation. 
But  with  many  the  idea  of  person  hardens  into  that  of 
independent  individuality.  The  Spirit  is  conceived  as 
a  being,  distinct  from  the  Father,  instead  of  a  character 
of,  or  in,  God  the  Father.  This  was  not  the  intent  of 
the  doctrine,  as  defined  by  the  councils  of  the  Church. 
It  conflicts  with  the  accompanying  doctrine  of  the 
"  procession,"  as  it  is  called,  "  of  the  Holy  Ghost." 
The  Spirit  is  said  to  "  proceed  "  from  God.  And  this 
procession  was  not  once  for  all,  but  still  continues.  It 
is  not  a  past  transaction,  a  fact  accomplished,  but  a 
present  and  constant  process.  The  language  is  not 
"proceeded,"  but  "proceeds."  The  question  arose  in 
the  ages  which  developed  this  doctrine,  whether  the  spirit 
proceeds  directly  and  solely  from  God,  or  from  God 
through  Christ.  The  Greek  Church  taught,  and  still 
teaches,  that  the  Spirit  is  wholly. and  only  from  the 
Father.  The  Latin  or  Roman-Catholic  Church  main- 
tained, and  still  maintains,  that  the  Spirit  proceeds  from 
the  Father  and  the  Son.  And  the  Latin  Church  is 
right :  the  interior  meaning  of  that  doctrine  is,  that 
the  spiritual  creation,  like  the  material,  is  based  on 
intellio:ence.  There  can  be  no  holiness  without  in- 
sight. 

The  Holy  Spirit  is  that  particular  agency  of  God, 
direct  or  indirect,  which  concerns  itself  with  the  moral 
and  religious  education  of  mankind.  It  is  God  acting 
in  this  particular  way  as  distinguished  from  God  in 
nature. 


THE   EEVELATION    OF   THE    SPIRIT.  285 

Self-manifestation  —  the  revelation  of  himself  in  ra- 
tional minds  —  must  be  supposed  to  be  the  end  of  all 
God's  doing.  The  visible  universe  is  one  revelation,  — 
intelligible  only  when  viewed  as  such.  "Day  unto  day 
uttereth  speech,  and  night  unto  night  showeth  knowl- 
edge." Nature  reflects  to  intelligent  minds  the  divine 
Wisdom  and  Love.  But  Nature  could  never  con^•ey 
the  most  distant  idea  of  moral  good.  The  truth  which 
we  attempt  to  express,  when  we  say  that  God  is  just, 
that  God  is  holy ;  the  fact  of  a  moral  law,  duty,  con- 
science, accountableness, — these  have  no  prototype  or' 
symbol  in  Nature.  This  is  something  of  which  Nature 
is  unconscious.  The  animal  world  exhibits  somethinof 
of  instinctive  love,  something  of  blind  attachment,  but 
nothing  like  justice,  holiness.  This  is  "the  way  which 
no  fowl  knoweth,"  which  "the  vulture's  eye  hath  not 
seen,"  and  which  "  the  lion's  whelps  have  not  trodden." 
''The  abyss  saith.  It  is  not  in  me  ;  and  the  sea  saith,  It 
is  not  with  me."  We  should  know  God  only  as  mighty, 
wise,  and  beneficent,  never  as  holy  and  just,  were 
there  not  another  creation  and  revelation  co-parallel 
with  the  material, — the  moral  creation,  the  revelation 
of  the  Spirit,  in  which  God  is  revealed  as  Moral  Law, 
and  as  Moral  and  Spiritual  Good. 

The  element  and  medium  of  this  moral  creation  is 
the  moral  nature  which  always  accompanies  conscious 
intelligence,  here  and  wherever  conscious  intelligence 
is  found.  Its  materials  are  rational  souls.  Of  these 
"living  stones"  the  divine  Architect,  the  Holy  Spirit, 
compiles  the  spiritual  fabric  which  all  good  men  are 
helping  to  build,  and  whose  completion  will  be  the  con- 
summation and  crown  of  time.     The  Christian  Church, 


286  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

in  the  vision  of  the  apostles,  was  identified  with  that 
fabric,  "  Christ  himself  being  the  chief  corner-stone  ;  in 
whom  all  the  building,  fitly  framed  together,  groweth 
unto  an  holy  temple  in  the  Lord."  The  Christian 
Church,  in  their  theory,  is  not  only  the  product,  but  the 
earthly  representative  and  embodiment,  of  the  Holy 
Spii'It.  At  once  both  agent  and  object,  creator  and 
creature,  it  sends  forth  the  influences  which  convert  the 
world,  and  grows  and  reproduces  itself  by  the  influences 
it  sends  forth. 

If,  now,  from  the  theology  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  we 
turn  to  its  practical  human  side,  we  find  in  its  action 
on  human  individuals  a  twofold  influence.  The  Spirit 
acts  on  the  reason  and  on  the  will.  It  inspires  the 
knowledge  of  moral  and  spiritual  truths,  and  it  quickens 
the  moral  and  spiritual  life.  We  are  influenced  by  it 
in  our  perceptions  and  in  our  practice. 

First,  our  perceptions, — the  knowledge  of  moral 
and  spiritual  truth.  All  knowledge  partakes  more  or 
less  of  inspiration.  Our  mental  faculties  are  not  the 
sources  of  truth.  In  and  of  themselves,  they  see  noth- 
ing and  know  nothing.  They  are  but  organs,  —  sec- 
ondary agents.  As  the  soundest  eye  conveys  no  Image 
to  the  mind,  until  the  llo'ht  from  without  has  touched 
its  nerve  ;  so  the  keenest  intellect  can  never  compre- 
hend the  simplest  truth,  until  moved  to  action  by  some 
impulse  from  abroad.  Not  that  any  knowledge,  strictly 
speaking,  is  Imparted.  We  acquire  nothing  by  passive 
reception  alone.  All  truth  is  the  product  of  our  own 
minds.  But  the  mind  can  produce  only  as  it  is  quick- 
ened from  abroad.  If  this  is  true  in  respect  to  secular 
knowledge,   how   much  more  in  respect  to   spiritual ! 


THE   REVELATION   OF   THE    SPIRIT.  287 

If  the  truths  which  relate  to  the  kinodoms  of  nature 
come  by  inspiration,  how  much  more  the  truths  which 
relate  to  the  kingdom  of  heaven  !  Why  was  it  that  all 
the  wisdom  of  antiquity  foiled  to  penetrate  those  mys- 
teries which  are  now  familiar  to  the  dullest  minds? 
Why  is  it  that  many  an  uneducated  Christian  possesses 
on  these  subjects  a  depth  of  insight  which  puts  to  shame 
the  wisdom  of  the  world?  Why,  but  that  truths  of 
this  order  are  a2:>prehended  by  some  other  faculty  than 
the  sensuous  understanding.  The  Holy  Spirit  is  the 
teacher  here.  And  the  fact  illustrates  the  equalizing 
power  of  the  Spirit,  which  not  only  overrules  the  fac- 
titious distinctions  of  social  rank,  but  sets  at  nought 
those  intellectual  disparities  which  separate  more  widely 
between  man  and  man.  More  than  any  scheme  of 
human  polity,  it  levels  society  by  raising  the  lowest 
to  an  equality  with  the  highest  in  that  which  in  all  is 
highest  and  best.  It  preaches  its  gospel  to  the  poor, 
and  so  maintains  the  equal  rights  of  the  mind,  without 
which  all  other  equality  is  futile  and  vain. 

What,  then,  it  may  be  asked,  is  the  agency  of  the 
Spirit  in  the  communication  of  truth  ?  It  is  the  agency 
of  the  sun  in  the  natural  world.  The  Spirit  is  to  the 
mind  what  light  is  to  the  eye.  Its  office  is  not  to 
impart  truth,  but  to  show  it.  To  those  who  seek  the 
truth  in  sincerity,  the  aid  of  the  Spirit  will  not  be  want- 
ing. Let  the  eye  be  open,  the  heart  free,  and  the 
understandinof  will  be  full  of  lioht.  Doubt  and  unbelief 
will  vanish  away  :  the  Spirit  will  guide  into  all  truth. 

2 .  The  Spirit  is  not  only  light  to  the  understanding  : 
it  is  also  motive  and  guide  to  the  will.  Its  agency 
affects  not  only  the  knowledge  but  the  practice  of  the 


288  RATIONAL    CHRISTIANITT. 

truth.  By  it  we  are  filled  with  holy  aspirations,  and 
moved  to  good  deeds.  All  goodness  is  from  God,  just 
as  all  power  is  remotely  or  directly  referrible  to  him. 
This  divine  influence  is  not  incompatible  with  human 
freedom.  Every  act  of  goodness  is  still  an  act  of  the 
will.  Omnipotence  itself  will  not  enforce  obedience. 
Nevertheless,  it  is  God  who  worketh  in  us,  both  to  will 
and  to  do.  From  him  we  derive  the  capacity  and  the 
impulse.  But  capacity  is  not  necessity,  and  impulse  is 
not  coercion.  We  are  moved,  and  yet  move  freely  ;  we 
accept  the  divine  influence,  yoke  it  with  our  destiny, 
and  choose  that  the  Spirit  of  God  shall  reign  in  our 
wills.  Liberty  is  not  absolute  disengagement  from  all 
rule.  ■  It  does  not  consist  in  lawless  roving,  but  in  free 
consent  with  legitimate  sway,  in  free  co-operation  with 
the  Supreme  Will.  Some  rule  we  must  obey  ;  but  we 
may  or  may  not  elect  our  ruler.  Two  opposite  currents 
of  influence  traverse  the  world.  The  one  leads  God- 
ward  ;  the  other,  deathward.  To  move  with  the  former 
is  moral  freedom  ;  to  be  carried  with  the  other  is  con- 
tradiction and  bondage.  To  say  that  God  is  the  author 
of  our  goodness,  no  more  detracts  from  the  power  of 
the  human  will,  than  to  say  that  God  is  the  author 
of  truth  detracts  from  man's  intellectual  powers.  He 
acts  upon  us,  not  as  compulsory  force,  but  as  quicken- 
ing influence. 

The  operation  of  the  Spirit  is  not  always  a  direct 
action  on  the  individual  mind.  More  frequently  it  acts 
through  the  instrumentality  of  other,  subordinate  agents, 
—  through  the  lips  and  lives  of  men,  by  teachers  and 
books,  by  instruction  and  example,  by  institutions 
and  ordinances,   by   every  influence  which  moves   the 


THE   REVELATION   OF   THE    SPIRIT.  289 

soul  to  well-doing.  When  we  read  a  good  book,  and 
are  profited  by  it ;  when  we  listen  to  discourse  that  acts 
favorably  on  our  moral  nature,  that  awakens  good 
impulses  in  the  breast,  —  we  are  visited  and  moved  by 
the  Holy  Ghost.  The  Church,  and  every  institution 
established  for  moral  and  religious  ends,  so  long  as  it 
fulfils  its  original  design,  is  a  medium  of  this  influence. 
It  is  the  Holy  Spirit  made  concrete. 

But,  though  this  indirect  operation  is  the  more  usual 
mode  in  which  the  divine  influence  is  communicated, 
it  acts  also  without  the  intervention  of  any  visible 
agent :  it  acts  as  direct  inspiration.  There  are  motions 
of  the  Spirit  in  us  which  are  not  to  be  ascribed  to  any 
external  influence :  they  are  the  Spirit  of  God  acting 
on  the  instinct  of  goodness  in  the  soul.  There  is  this 
instinct  in  every  soul.  It  is  not  the  most  patent,  but 
the  deepest,  of  all  our  instincts.  Often  neutralized  by 
other  propensities,  it  needs  the  quickening  of  the  Spirit 
to  give  it  life.  Then  it  manifests  itself  in  those  moral 
aspirations  by  which  the  most  thoughtless  are  some- 
times roused  to  conscientious  and  beneficent  action. 
If  ever,  at  some  moment  of  solitary  musing,  we  have 
felt  within  ourselves  a  stronger  conviction  of  moral 
and  spiritual  truth,  a  stronger  determination  to  good ; 
if  ever  we  have  seized  with  truer  insio-ht  the  meanins^ 
and  purpose  of  our  being,  and  have  formed  the  resolu- 
tion to  live  for  duty  and  for  God,  —  it  was  the  Spirit 
breathing  on  the  latent  spark  of  spiritual  life  in  the 
breast,  which  gave  us  that  vision,  and  caused  those 
fires  to  glow.  And,  if  we  analyze  our  experience  at 
such  seasons,  we  shall  see  how  man's  free  agency  may 

consist  with  divine  impulsion.     We  shall  see,  that  while 

19 


290  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

the  determination  of  the  mind  to  moral  ends  is  a  free 
determination,  calling  into  action  the  whole  force  of 
our  own  will,  it  is  still  a  divine  impulse  that  moves  us, 
and  a  God  that  works  in  us  to  will  as  well  as  to  do. 

The  agency  of  the  Spirit,  as  now  defined,  is  impar- 
tial, in  itself  considered ;  but  its  efficacy  in  each  indi- 
vidual is  limited  by  personal  conditions.  It  is  limited 
by  the  receptivity  which  we  bring  to  it.  And  the 
receptivity  which  we  bring  to  it  will  depend  in  a  great 
degree  on  previous  training.  I  do  not  deny  original 
differences  of  moral  endowment.  Some  men  seem 
born  to  goodness  as  a  natural  heritage :  it  is  their  pat- 
rimony. Their  way  apparently  is  smooth  and  free. 
No  obstacle  seems  to  intervene  between  the  purposes 
they  form  and  the  ends  they  contemplate.  The  intent 
and  the  act  hang  together  by  natural  dependence,  like 
the  links  of  a  chain.  We  admire  the  facility  with 
which  they  appear  to  glide  onward  to  perfection,  while 
we  are  constantly  thwarted,  and  pulled  back  by  inward 
contradiction  or  external  force.  Something  of  this 
difference  may  be  due  to  natural  inequality  of  moral 
constitution  ;  but  more  is  due  to  self-discipline.  If  the 
Spirit  of  God  has  greater  influence  with  some  than 
with  others,  the  reason  is  generally,  that,  by  early  obe- 
dience and  long  discipline,  they  have  attained  to  higher 
degrees  of  spiritual  life.  Their  previous  habits  have 
disposed  the  mind  to  be  easily  affected  by  such  influ- 
ences ;  the  will  has  not  been  perverted  and  depraved ; 
the  first  impulses  of  the  Spirit  in  them  were  not  re- 
sisted, but  received  into  willing  minds,  and  suffered  to 
acquire  a  permanent  control  of  the  thoughts  and  desires. 
In  nothing  is  the  truth  of  the  saying,  that  "  to  him  who 


THE   REVELATION    OF   THE    SPIRIT.  291 

hath  shall  be  given,"  more  evident  than  it  is  in  relation 
to  the  moral  life.  Therefore  said  an  apostle,  '^  Grieve 
not  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God."  By  a  figure  derived  from 
human  affections,  the  divine  agency  is  represented  as 
a  friend  who  wills  our  good,  but  may  be  vexed  and 
alienated  by  our  opposition  or  our  indifference.  Not 
that  we  can  actually  change  the  purpose  of  God,  or 
avert  his  grace.  Nothing  that  we  can  do  can  alienate 
his  love,  or  render  the  Father  of  spirits  less  willing  to 
aid  and  to  bless.  He  is  true  to  us,  however  w^e  may 
turn  from  him.  Nevertheless,  we  may  destroy  the 
efficacy  of  his  gifts  in  us ;  and,  by  alienating  our  own 
minds,  may  virtually  alienate  his  love.  The  effect  for 
us  is  the  same,  whether  he  is  turned  from  us  or  we  from 
him. 

There  is  a  very  remarkable  coincidence  between  this 
apostolic  precept  and  the  doctrine  of  some  of  the 
ancient  Gentile  philosophers.  Gentile  philosophy 
taught,  that  a  good  spirit  waits  upon  all  who  choose  to 
accept  its  guidance.  The  great  Athenian  personified 
in  this  way  the  nobler  instincts  of  his  mind.  He  spoke 
of  a  d^mon  (or,  as  we  should  say,  a  good  genius) 
who  informed  and  impelled  him.  And  Seneca,  the 
contemporary  of  Paul,  says  more  explicitly,  as  if  he  had 
received  the  thought  directly  from  him,  "There  dwells 
in  us  a  holy  spirit  who  watches  all  our  good  and  all 
our  evil  deeds,  and  who  treats  us  according  to  the 
treatment  he  receives." 

Subjectively,  then,  the  Holy  Spirit  is  to  be  considered 
a  divine  instinct  in  man  ;  a  special  faculty,  differing  from 
reason  and  understanding,  and  the  other  faculties  of 
the  mind,  in  tliis,  that  it  always  speaks  with  authority ; 


292  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

it  addresses  us,   not  as   argument,  but   as    command. 
So  it  appears  in  numerous  instances  in  the  history  of 
the  apostles,  who  are  represented  as  urged  and  impelled 
by  this  divine  instinct  to   do,  or  refrain  from  doing, 
sometimes  contrary  to  their  own  judgment  or  their  own 
will.     Paul  and  Timothy,  it  is  said,  "  assayed  to  go  into 
Bithynia;   but  the  Spirit  would  not  suffer  them."     It 
was  reserved  for  Protestantism,   in  harmony  with  its 
true,  original  tendency,  to  follow  out  these  hints,  and 
unfold  this  subjective   side,  as   the  elder   Church   had 
developed  the  positive  theological  view   of  the   Holy 
Ghost.     Honor  to  George  Fox  and  the  founders  of  the 
sect  of  Friends,  who  first  did  justice  to  the  Christian 
idea  of  divine  inspiration ;   who  re-affirmed  the  spiritual 
instinct,  and  vindicated  the  inward  light !     What  to  the 
elder  Church  was  a  barren  dogma,  a  scholastic  abstrac- 
tion, an  hypothesis,  the  third  person  in  Trinity,  —  to 
them  was  a  spiritual  fact.     "  When  the  Lord  God  and 
his  Son  Jesus  Christ,"  says  Fox,  "sent  me  forth  into  the 
world  to  preach  his  everlasting  gospel  and  kingdom,  I 
was   commanded  to   turn   men   to    that   inward    light, 
spirit,  and  grace,  by  which  all  might  know  the  way 
to  God ;  even  that  divine  Spirit  which  would  lead  into 
all  truth,  and  would  never  deceive."     His  theory,  and 
that  of  his  followers,  was  and  is,  that  man,  if  he  will, 
may  have    the    immediate    guidance    of  the   Spirit   of 
God ;  that  inspiration  is  not  a  past  fact,  but  a  present 
reality. 

"  Grieve  not  the  Spirit !  "  Be  true  to  your  highest 
instincts  !  Often,  in  temporal  matters,  we  are  warned 
by  a  secret  voice,  which  comes  to  us  like  a  mandate 
from  above,  to  do  or  forbear.     It  is   always  wise   to 


THE   REVELATION   OF   THE    SPIRIT.   .  293 

accept  such  warnings.  We  cannot  hoj.e  to  prosper,  if 
we  sacrifice  our  own  instinct  to  formal  reasons  and  the 
judgment  of  others.  People  come  to  you,  when  you 
are  hesitating  between  two  courses  of  conduct,  and  say. 
Do  thus  and  so.  It  is  all  very  well,  so  long  as  no 
instinct  of  your  own  prompts  otherwise  ;  but  if  some- 
thing within  you  says,  Do  no  such  thing,  then  be  sure 
you  do  no  such  thing.  If  this  is  true  doctrine  in  mat- 
ters of  temporal  import,  how  much  more  in  things 
pertaining  to  our  spiritual  well-being  !  Resist  not  this 
sacred  force  !  Beware  of  alienating  the  divine  influ- 
ence !  Whenever  you  feel  yourself  prompted  to  any 
good  work,  to  any  act  of  kindness  or  self-denial,  to 
any  course  of  discipline  or  holy  living,  accept  the 
impulse,  hasten  to  obey  while  the  fire  burns.  It  is 
God  that  speaks  in  these  secret  promptings.  Harden 
not  your  heart  when  you  hear  that  voice.  The  Spirit 
will  leave  you  if  you  refuse  obedience ;  every  warning 
disregarded  is  a  door  closed  against  future  progress. 
If  you  do  not  now  the  good  which  you  can,  the  time 
will  come  when  you  cannot  do  the  good  which  you 
would. 

If  we  w^ould  receive  the  divine  influence  in  its  fullest 
measure  and  its  greatest  force,  w^e  must  earnestly  de- 
sire it.  God  will  help  no  one  in  that  in  which  he  him- 
self is  indififerent ;  he  will  not  give  his  Spirit  except  to 
those  that  ask  it.  Other  gifts  do  not  wait  our  entreaty  ; 
the  common  bounties  of  Providence  are  not  withheld 
from  those  who  neglect  to  ask  for  them ;  but  prayer  is 
an  indispensable  condition  of  spiritual  gifts.  By  prayer 
I  mean  not  a  form  of  words,  but  an  earnest  desire  and 
a  fervent  afifection.     No  needed  gift  is  denied  to  the 


294  RATIONAL,   CHRISTIANITY. 

prayer  of  faith.  Every  thing  may  be  had  by  him  who 
earnestly  desires  what  he  should.  If  we  fail  to  receive 
the  grace  we  implore,  it  is  because  we  ask  with  a  waver- 
ing mind,  and  a  lazy  desire,  and  a  sluggish  faith.  It 
is  because  we  ask  as  if  we  wished  or  expected  to  be 
denied ;  as  a  man  asks  a  dentist  to  draw  his  tooth, 
or  a  surgeon  to  cut  off  a  limb,  or  to  execute  any  other 
painful  operation  which  he  supposes  to  be  necessary, 
but  would  fain  avoid  if  he  could.  "  If  we  loved  truly 
what  we  ask  for  daily,"  says  Bishop  Taylor,  "we  should 
ask  with  hearty  desires  and  a  fervent  spirit.  The  river 
that  runs  slow  and  creeps  by  its  banks,  and  begs  leave 
of  every  turf  to  let  it  pass,  is  drawn  into  little  hollows, 
and  dies  with  diversion.  So,  if  a  man's  prayer  move 
upon  the  feet  of  an  abated  appetite,  it  wanders  into  the 
society  of  every  trifling  accident,  and  stays  at  the  cor- 
ners of  the  fancy,  and  cannot  arrive  at  heaven.  But, 
when  it  is  can-ied  upon  the  wings  of  strong  desire  and 
a  hungry  appetite,  it  passes  on  through  all  the  inter- 
mediate region  of  the  clouds,  and  stays  not  until  it 
dwells  at  the  foot  of  the  throne,  and  draws  down  show- 
ers of  refreshment." 

Pray  for  the  Spirit ;  for  who  in  this  world  can  do 
without  it, — without  its  impulse,  without  its  leaven, 
without  its  restraining  and  sustaining  power?  It  has 
been  affirmed  that  civilization  and  the  progress  of 
society  are  wholly  and  purely  an  intellectual  product. 
To  assert  this  is  to  forget  the  gift  of  God,  and  what  it 
is  that  keeps  the  human  heart  from  dying  out,  and  all 
the  powers  from  perishing  through  utter  corruption. 
It  is  not  our  laws  and  our  courts,  not  well-balanced 
constitutions  and  social  devices,  not  science  and  steam 


THE   REVELATION   OF  THE   SPIRIT.  295 

and  electro-magnetism,  —  not  these  alone  that  have 
brought  us  thus  far,  and  made  this  world  what  it  is ; 
but  beneath  all  these,  and  above  them  all,  a  divine 
impulse,  never  wanting  to  the  race  of  men  ;  a  divine 
Spirit  for  ever  haunting  them  with  those  two  radical 
and  universal  ideas, — truth  and  duty,  without  whose 
penetrating  and  creative  power  not  one  stone  would 
ever  have  been  laid  upon  another  of  all  our  cities,  no 
tree  ever  felled,  no  human  implement  fashioned  for  its 
work.  And,  if  God  should  now  withdraw  his  Spirit, 
this  proud  civilization,  with  its  gorgeous  palaces  and 
solemn  temples ;  this  shining  and  sounding  culture, 
with  its  traffic  and  its  arts,  its  stately  conventions,  and 
fair  humanities,  —  would  tumble  and  dissolve  ;  the  wild 
beasts  that  are  caged  in  these  human  frames,  now  awed 
and  tamed  by  the  presence  of  that  Spirit,  would  creep 
forth,  and  rend,  and  devour ;  and  the  civilized  earth 
revert  to  chaos  and  night. 

The  individual  no  more  than  society  can  dispense 
with  the  Holy  Ghost.  The  rich  requires  it  as  well  as 
the  poor.  He  needs  its  promptings,  and  he  needs  its 
peace ;  he  needs  its  strength,  and  he  needs  its  consola- 
tion. He  needs  it  in  smooth  prosperity,  and  he  needs 
it  in  the  struggles  and  straits  of  life.  He  is  subject  to 
assaults  from  within  and  from  without ;  he  is  tempted 
to  transgress  the  law  in  his  mind,  to  obey  the  law  in 
his  members,  to  forsake  himself,  to  swerve  from  the 
right.  No  earthly  power  can  secure  him  against 
temptation,  or  deliver  him  when  tempted.  The  Holy 
Spirit  alone  can  bring  him  safely  through  the  wars, 
and  save  his  feet  from  falling  and  his  soul  from  death. 
He  is  subject  to  calamity  and  sharp  distress,  to  grief 


296  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

and  bereavement,  the  loss  of  his  beloved,  the  wreck  of 
his  hopes.  No  earthly  power  can  avert  these  woes, 
or  soothe  their  sting.  The  Holy  Spirit  is  the  only 
comforter  that  can  reach  him  in  those  deeps,  and  make 
the  night  seem  light  about  him.  This  same  Spirit  is 
nearer  to  us  all,  and  more  to  us,  than  any  soul  can 
fully  know  in  this  world,  or  is  willing  to  believe. 
AYhat  is  it,  in  fact,  but  the  hidden  life,  the  self  of  our 
self,  which  now  and  then  bursts  into  consciousness,  and 
amazes  us  with  a  foreign  presence  in  our  private 
thought?  Those  lucid  intervals  in  our  experience, 
those  clear  spaces  in  our  life,  when  the  roar  and  rush 
of  the  world's  torrent  ceases,  and  the  cloud-rack  lifts, 
and  a  bit  of  the  blue  sky  struggles  through,  with  revela- 
tion of  immortal  deeps  ;  —  these  are  momentary  realiza- 
tions of  the  presence  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  from  which  at 
no  time  we  are  otherwise'  sundered  than  by  the  wan- 
derino;s  of  our  own  thou2;ht  and  will. 

But  suppose  this  earthly  world  could  be  traversed, 
and  this  mortal  life  lived,  without  the  gift  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  how  will  it  be  when  the  gulf  yawns  toward 
which  we  are  momently  drifting?  No  earthly  power 
can  bridge  that  gulf,  or  ferry  us  over  it.  There  is  no 
spring  in  this  breast  of  ours  by  which  it  can  throw  off 
the  clod  that  is  laid  upon  it,  and  erect  itself  out  of  dusty 
death.  There  is  no  power  in  this  soul  by  which  to 
extricate  itself  out  of  the  wreck  of  this  mortal.  Let 
philosophers  say  what  they  will,  there  is  no  natural 
immortality.  If  ever  we  rise  again  to  conscious  life, 
it  will  be  by  no  native  power,  but  by  the  operation  of 
the  Spirit  of  God  on  souls  already  possessed  by  it,  and 
in  some  degree  conformed  to  its  likeness. 


THE  REVELATION  OF   THE   SPIRIT.  297 

The  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  peculiarly  Chris- 
tian. It  is  not  a  deduction  of  the  human  understand- 
ing, but  a  revelation  from  "  the  Father  of  lights." 
And,  without  this  revelation,  the  name  of  God  is  only 
a  name,  a  vague  abstraction,  having  no  relation  to  the 
heart  or  life.  It  is  only  through  his  Spirit  that  God 
becomes  to  us  a  person  and  reality.  You  may  gather 
—  who  does  not  ?  —  from  the  visible  creation  the  notion 
of  almighty  power  and  beneficent  design.  From  the 
course  of  human  affairs  you  may  get — who  does  not? — 
the  impression  of  a  superintending  Providence  and  an 
all-present  Love.  From  the  experiences  of  your  moral 
nature  you  infer  —  who  does  not?  —  a  moral  govern- 
ment and  a  riofhteous  law.  But  all  this  does  not  con- 
stitute  the  God  of  the  Christian  revelation,  the  Father 
of  spirits  and  of  mercies.  That  idea  could  never  be 
wrought  out  of  those  materials.  The  idea  of  God  is  a 
revelation  of  his  Spirit ;  and  unless  the  Spirit  of  God 
dwell  in  us,  superstition  may  have  an  idol,  conscience 
a  law,  philosophy  a  name ;  but  the  heart  has  no  God. 


V. 

ft 

THE  SPIRIT  IN  THE  LETTER. 


V. 

THE   SPIRIT  IN  THE  LETTER. 


All  spirit,  in  proportion  to  the  force  there  is  in  it, 
seeks  to  embody  itself,  and  tends  in  time  to  become 
a  letter.  All  spiritual  movements,  that  are  strong 
enough  and  true  enough  to  last,  end  there.  All  reve- 
lations and  reforms,  after  passing  through  the  fluid 
stage,  arrive  at  a  solid  one  :  after  living  and  working 
as  disembodied  spirit  for  a  while,  they  crystallize  into 
stated,  formal  agencies,  and  settle  down  into  scriptures 
and  churches.  Judaism  was  a  spirit  once,  and  became 
a  letter  ;  Christianity  was  a  spirit,  and  became  a  letter ; 
Protestantism  was  a  spirit,  and  became  a  letter.  Such 
was  their  providential  destiny.  Every  letter,  ordinance, 
organization,  that  now  exists,  was  once  a  disembodied 
spirit ;  and  every  thought,  sentiment,  movement,  which 
now  agitates  society,  if  genuine  and  destined  to  endure, 
will  one  day  become  a  letter. 

It  will  not  do  to  quarrel  with  the  letter :  the  spirit 
requires  it.  Spirit  will  not  stay  without  a  letter  to 
hold  it,  as  every  one  knows  from  his  own  experience. 
What  avails  your  vision,  your  aspiration,  your  ideal? 
what  avail  your  kind  purposes  and  generous  emotions, 

[301] 


302  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

if  they  do  not  embody  themselves  ?  You  have  a  vision 
of  excellence ;  it  fills  your  whole  soul ;  your  spirit  is 
aglow  with  it ;  it  is  your  spirit  for  the  time ;  and  could 
your  spiritual  interior  at  that  moment  be  laid  open  and 
portrayed,  as  a  photograph  fixes  the  fleeting  expression 
of  the  countenance,  the  portrait  would  be  that  of  a  hero 
or  a  saint.  What  boots  it,  if  you  do  not  embody  that 
spirit  in  some  word  or  work?  It  expires  Avith  the 
pulses  of  the  breast ;  it  evaporates  with  a  breath,  and 
no  man  is  benefited  by  it :  it  was  and  is  not,  and  no 
memorial  of  it  remains  to  kindle  aspiration  in  another, 
or  to  rekindle  it  in  yourself.  But  express  that  spirit, 
record  it  in  some  way,  embody  it  somewhere,  and  you 
add  sometliiug  to  the  spirit's  life  and  the  world's  riches. 
As  yet,  it  is  a  mere  breath  that  steals  over  the  soul, 
a  possibility  only ;  you  are  none  the  better  for  it,  nor 
any  one  else,  if  it  end  so.  And  yet  the  spirit  is  good 
and  holy  and  divine  as  that  which  fired  St.  Francis 
when  he  poured  out  his  soul  in  measureless  love,  or 
that  which  flooded  the  heart  of  «Tesus  when  he  prayed 
for  his  enemies  on  the  cross.  But,  divine  as  it  is  in 
possibility,  it  is  nothing  in  reality,  until  it  is  embodied ; 
and  it  may  be  worse  than  nothing,  as  exhausting  sensi- 
bility in  leaves  without  fruit,  like  the  infructuous  fig- 
tree,  whose  leafy  and  lying  luxuriance  availed  nothing, 
but  drew  to  itself  a  curse.  As  yet,  it  is  a  mere  breath  : 
shall  it  end  so  ?  —  a  passing  wind  whence  coming  you 
heed  not,  nor  whither  going?  or  shall  it  become  actual, 
and  a  fact  of  life?  Express  it,  actualize  it  in  some 
way,  and  straightway  it  becomes  life,  a  thing,  a  fact ; 
insignificant  in  appearance,  obscure  in  place,  evanescent 
in  time ;  but  still,  life,  and  a  fountain  of  life  to  others, 


THE    SPIRIT   IN   THE   LETTER.  303 

an  influence  in  the  world,  and  so  an  actual,  constituent 
part  of  the  world,  inseparable,  indestructible.  The 
difference  between  it  and  spirit  unexpressed  is  simply 
infinite, — the  diflference  between  something  and  nothing. 
I  fancy  that,  when  the  soul  reckons  with  us  in  our  day 
of  judgment,  we  shall  burn  less  with  the  memory  of 
bad  acts  or  words,  than  of  good  designs  unembodied, 
and  worthy  thoughts  unexpressed. 

All  spirit,  so  far  as  it  is  good  and  holy  at  all,  is  a 
unity.  The  spirit  which  prays  in  any  of  us  to-day,  if 
the  genuine  fire  of  devotion  is  in  us,  is  the  same  which 
discoursed  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  opened  the 
eyes  of  the  blind ;  which  blew  into  the  soul  of  Peter, 
and  drove  Paul  like  a  rolling  thing  around  the  world, 
and  built  up  universal  Christendom,  with  its  temples 
and  its  scriptures,  its  sanctities  and  its  arts.  The 
diflference  between  the  spirit  that  did  all  this,  and  the 
holy  thought  or  generous  sentiment  that  stirs  my  heart 
to-day,  and  remains  unexpressed,  is  not  in  quality,  but 
in  outwardness, — the  diflference  between  the  spirit 
with  a  letter,  and  the  spirit  loithout  it.  Theoretically, 
the  spmt  that  originated  these  things  might  not  have 
originated  them  (although  providentially  it  must), 
and  yet  have  been  as  holy  and  divine  a  spirit  still.  It 
was  no  more  holy  and  divine  than  the  spirit  that  has 
wrought  in  many  an  anchorite  and  recluse,  and  in 
many  a  Quaker  Friend,  which  might  have  produced 
the  like,  but  did  not  embody  itself,  —  spent  itself, 
rather,  in  private  devotion  and  secret  contemplation. 

We  are  indebted  to  the  letter  as  much  as  to  the 
spirit, — to  the  spirit  only  through  the  letter.  And 
when  we  consider  how  a  piece  of  parchment  in  a  regis- 


304  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

trar's  office,  which  is  not  even  looked  at  once  in  a  life 
time,  may  fix  the  occupation  of  large  portions  of  thf 
earth's  surface  for  thousands  of  years ;  and  how  a 
printed  paper  which  they  call  a  Constitution  may  de- 
termine the  political  condition  of  a  nation,  —  the  meas- 
ure of  external  freedom  enjoyed,  or  bondage  endured, 
of  millions  of  people ;  and  how  some  leaves  inscribed 
with  tables  of  figures  will  enable  a  ship's  company  to 
find  their  way  across  the  pathless  sea,  and  to  circum- 
navigate the  world, — when,  I  say,  we  consider  these 
things,  and  note  the  power  of  the  letter,  and  the  value 
of  its  function  in  the  secular  economy  of  life,  we  may 
come  to  think  respectfully  of  its  agency,  as  a  power  in 
religion. 

It  must  be  granted  to  those  who  argue  the  cause  of 
the  spirit  as  against  the  letter,  that  no  existing  letter 
can  endure  for  ever,  or  continue  for  ever  to  hold  the 
place  which  it  once  held  in  the  spiritual  economy. 
Every  form  in  which  the  spirit  clothes  itself,  every  body 
it  puts  on,  is  transient ;  every  existing  organization  is 
destructible,  and  to  be  destroyed.  The  spirit  endures, 
the  form  perishes.  Yet  even  here  .we  must  distin- 
guish between  form  and  type ;  that  is,  between  the 
material  form  and  the  spiritual, — between  soul  and 
body.  Every  form  of  being  which  is  not  exceptional 
or  transitional  and  accidental,  expresses  a  type  which 
will  re-appear  when  the  form  that  now  embodies  it  is 
dissolved.  In  other  words,  the  form  will  reproduce 
itself  continually.  The  human  body  is  fragile  and  cor- 
ruptible :  all  the  bodies  in  which  humanity  is  now 
invested  will  soon  be  dust ;  but  the  human  form  will 
endure  while  heaven  and  «arth  remain ;  and  when  the 


THE   SPIRIT   IN   THE   LETTER.  305 

heavens  and  the  earth  that  now  are  have  passed  away. 
The  human  form  is  a  letter  that  can  never  become 
obsolete.  And  so  there  may  be  types  of  the  spirit  in 
the  present  institutions  and  ordinances  of  religion, 
which  will  survive  their  dissolution,  and  reproduce 
themselves  in  new  and  similar  ordinances,  if  ever  the 
present  shall  pass  out  of  use  ;  as  indeed  the  present  are 
reproductions  of  elder  rites.  Sacrifice  is  as  old  as 
worship  itself;  but  what  a  difference  between  the  human 
sacrifices  of  ancient  religions  and  the  High  Mass  of  the 
Church  of  Rome !  And  what  a  difference  between 
that  and  the  commemorative  rite  of  our  Protestant 
faith  ! 

This  also  must  be  conceded,  that  in  no  letter  is  the 
spirit  fully  and  perfectly  expressed,  and  that  the  letter 
still  requires  the  spirit  to  interpret  its  import,  and  to 
make  it  available  and  edifying  to  those  who  would  use 
it.  It  is  a  medium  of  spiritual  life  to  those  only  who 
come  to  it  with  and  in  the  spirit.  Without  that  touch 
of  kindred  life,  it  is  dead  and  deadening.  Then  it  is 
that  "  the  letter  killeth."  The  metallic  wire  which 
conveys  your  message  to  a  distant  friend,  and  his  to 
you,  possesses  that  capacity  in  a  latent  state.  No 
manipulation  can  make  it  work  to  that  end  without  the 
touch  of  the  electric  fluid  which  develops  its  secret 
virtue.  Nevertheless,  that  metallic  wire  is  a  necessary 
condition  of  the  communication  desired :  no  other 
medium  can  supply  its  place,  nor  can  the  communica- 
tion take  effect  without  a  medium.  So  is  the  letter 
without  the  spirit,  and  still  an  indispensable  mediator 
of  spirit. 

It  is  an  old  controversy,  the  dispute  conceraing  the 

20 


306  KATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

letter  and  the  spirit  in  religion.  All  parties  agree  in 
asserting  the  supremacy  of  the  spii'it.  There  is  no 
difference  between  Quaker  and  Komanist  on  that  point. 
The  only  question  is,  whether  any,  and  how^  much,  of 
letter  is  essential  to  spirit.  There  is  always  a  party 
in  the  Church  who  despise  the  letter  and  disparage 
ordinances  and  all  external  sanctities.  They  think 
they  have  Paul  on  their  side,  when  they  quote  those 
words  of  his,  "The  letter  killeth."  But  Paul  is  not 
to  be  so  understood.  He  does  not  condemn  the  letter 
as  such, — any  and  every  letter, — but  only  the  literality 
and  empty  formality  which  Judaism  in  his  day  had 
come  to  be.  The  correct  application  of  this  saying  will 
depend  on  what  w^e  assume  to  be  the  object  of  the 
word  "killeth."  It  is  not  the  spirit  that  the  letter  kill- 
eth ;  on  the  contrary,  we  have  seen  that  the  letter  is 
necessary  to  any  continued  life  of  the  spirit ;  —  not  the 
spirit,  but  those  who  rest  in  the  letter  alone ;  those 
who  separate  the  letter  from  the  spirit,  and  make  it 
supreme  and  final.  The  fault,  then,  is  not  in  the  letter, 
but  in  those  who  use  it. 

Men  may  rail  as  they  please  at  the  letter,  and  dis- 
parage what  is  outward  in  religion  :  but  those  churches 
are  the  strongest  that  have  most  of  it ;  strongest  not 
only  in  the  way  of  efficient  action  and  ecclesiastical 
powder,  but  strongest  in  spiritual  vitality.  Out  of  them 
have  come  the  sublimest  examples  of  spiritual  life ; 
while  those  churches  which  have  thought  meanly  of  the 
letter,  and  sought  to  dispense  with  it,  have  languished 
and  died  out.  George  Fox  and  his  followers  were 
filled  with  perhaps  as  pure  a  spirit  as  eve',  animated  a 
body   of  religionists.       If  spirit  wdthoul    letter   could 


THE    SPIRIT   IX    THE   LETTER.  307 

accomplish  any  thing,  how  much  should  have  been 
accomplished  by  them  !  Here  was  spirit  with  a  witness, 
spirit  shed  w4th  boundless  prodigality,  —  a  river  of 
God  which  was  full  of  water.  But  for  want  of  the 
letter,  which  it  flouted  and  disdained,  comparatively 
little  was  accomplished  by  this  movement ;  while  the 
Church  of  England,  against  which  it  contended  on 
account  of  the  alleged  excess  of  the  letter  in  its  minis- 
trations, has,  through  that  letter,  survived  to  this  day, 
and  still  flourishes  with  undiminished  vitality ;  and  is  at 
this  moment  to  millions  of  souls  an  efficient  medium  of 
spiritual  life.  I  am  no  friend  to  the  Church  of  Rome. 
I  believe  it  to  be  an  enemy  to  social  progress  and 
intellectual  freedom.  But  what  a  power  it  is  !  main- 
taining itself  to  this  day,  through  so  many  revolutions 
of  time  and  society ;  at  this  moment  the  strongest 
Church  in  Christendom,  the  strongest  organized  force 
on  the  globe.  And,  after  deducting  its  manifold  evils 
and  corruptions,  what  a  vast  amount  of  spiritual  good 
must  still  be  conceded  to  it ;  of  how  much  genuine 
piety  and  practical  holiness,  and  good  works,  it  is  still 
the  fruitful  and  constant  source  !  What  is  the  reason 
of  this  continued  vitality?  The  Church  of  Rome,  as  a 
leader  of  human  thought,  has  long  since  fallen  from  her 
pride  of  place ;  as  a  guide  and  law  of  the  human  soul, 
she  has  long  been  obsolete  ;  the  vision  and  the  prophecy 
have  departed  from  her :  no  longer  capable  of  origi- 
nating new  thought  or  generating  new  life,  her  sole 
aim  is  to  guard  and  perpetuate  the  life  of  the  past. 
The  reason  of  her  continued  vitality  is  the  fulness  and 
breadth  of  the  letter,  by  which  she  subsists,  and  which 
supplies,  at  least,  and  will  long  supply,  that  traditional 


308  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

life.  When  the  sph'it  of  the  living  God  was  poured 
out  upon  this  Church,  in  the  days  of  her  youth,  it  was 
gathered  into  these  vessels,  which  are  still  so  far  im- 
pregnated with  it  that  he  who  comes  to  them  in  the 
spirit  of  faith,  by  the  power  of  that  faith  in  himself 
awakens  the  spirit  that  is  latent  in  them,  and  partakes 
of  its  life. 

Where  the  letter  killeth,  the  fault  is  not  in  the  letter 
itself,  though  of  that  there  may  be,  no  doubt,  an 
excess.  The  fault  is  the  want  of  spirit  in  us  by  which 
to  interpret  its  import,  and  reproduce  it  in  our  use. 
Whoever  comes  with  the  spirit  in  himself  to  the  letter 
of  his  Church  will  find  it  living.  So  much  spirit  as  he 
brings  to  it,  so  much  spirit  will  he  find  in  it,  and 
give  to  it  in  his  communications  ;  as  Jesus,  when  he 
took  the  traditional  cup  of  the  Passover  at  the  Last 
Supper,  flashed  the  light  of  his  own  spirit  over  all  the 
ages  that  had  handed  it  down  to  him,  recovering  its 
original  import,  and  forward  across  all  the  ages  that 
were  to  hand  it  down,  reproduced  with  new  import,  to 
us.  The  letter  killeth  not  the  spirit,  but  the  unspir- 
itual ;  and  the  spirit  maketh  alive,  not  tlie  spiritual 
only,  but  every  letter  which  the  spirit  produced  in  times 
gone  by.  Much  of  the  complaint  which  we  hear  of  the 
oJdness  of  the  letter,  and  much  of  the  impatience  of 
rites  and  forms  and  scriptures,  so  far  from  betokening 
larger  spirituality,  is  often  but  a  proof  of  weakness  of 
faith,  —  a  want  of  power  to  penetrate  into  the  soul 
of  these  things,  to  interpret  their  deeper  import,  and 
recover  their  latent  life.  Or  it  may  be  that  spirit 
abounds  in  those  who  contemn  the  letter,  yet  not  the 
spirit  which  gave  the  letter,  but  one  contrary  thereto. 


THE   SPIEIT  IN  THE   LETTER.  309 

"Try  the  spirits  whether  they  be  of  God."  Not  every 
spirit  that  arises  in  the  Church,  and  discourses  of  re- 
ligion, is  of  that  denomination.  The  world  of  spirits, 
like  that  of  chemic  forces,  has  its  negative  as  well  as  its 
positive  pole.  The  spirits  of  God  are  known  by  their 
affirmations ;  but  there  is  a  spirit  which  denies.  So 
Goethe,  in  his  immortal  drama,  makes  Mephistopheles 
describe  himself,  "I  am  the  spirit  that  evermore  de- 
nies ; "  a  necessary  agent,  no  doubt,  in  the  universal 
and  divine  economy ;  but  beware  of  that  spirit,  —  the 
spirit  of  negation,  opposition,  unbelief.  Subsidiary,  let 
it  be,  not  dominant,  in  your  scheme  of  life.  The  test 
of  a  true  spirit  is  its  productiveness.  The  spirit  that 
can  originate  a  letter  in  which  men  shall  find  their 
oracle  and  comforter  and  life,  or  that  can  interpret  such 
a  letter  when  it  has  grown  dim,  or  re-animate  it  when 
it  is  old,  —  the  same  is  of  God. 

In  advocating  the  claims  of  the  letter  in  religion, 
I  am  advocating  the  cause  of  the  spirit.  It  is  not 
a  lifeless  form,  but  a  living  body,  as  distinguished 
from  spirit  disembodied,  for  which  I  plead.  Not  let- 
ter and  sjiirit  are  opposed,  but  literal  and  spmtual 
views  and  interpretations. 

There  is  a  literal  and  a  spiritual  way  of  viewing  and 
handling  -the  doctrines  and  ordinances  of  religion,  as 
in  Paul's  day  there  was  a  literal  and  a  spiritual  Juda- 
ism. "The  letter  killeth"  in  doctrine  and  rite,  when 
doctrine  and  rite  are  held  and  interpreted  as  letter 
alone,  in  slavish  subjection  to  a  formula  which  should 
be  regarded  as  a  servant  of  thought,  and  not  as  a  law ; 
an  imperfect  attempt  to  articulate  truth,  and  not  as  the 
limit  and  measure  of  truth.     Every  doctrine  which  is 


310  RATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY. 

not  an  individual  conceit,  but  has  the  acceptance  and 
sanction  of  the  Church,  expresses  a  truth,  which,  spirit- 
ually interpreted,  maketh  alive,  but  expresses  it  in  a 
letter,  which,  held  in  its  literal  narrowness,  killeth.  It 
is  always  on  the  letter,  and  not  on  the  spirit,  that  sects 
have  split.  For  example,  the  doctrine  of  the  Ti-inity, 
an  ancient  and  generally  received  doctrine  of  the 
Church, — Father,  Son,  and  Spirit,  —  conceived  as  a 
kind  of  theological  arithmetic  or  ecclesiastical  my- 
thology, proposing  three  Gods,  and  calling  them  one, 
—  this  doctrine  is  death  to  reason  and  common  sense  ; 
but  conceived  in  the  sense  of  those  immortal  leaders 
and  interpreters  of  the  Church,  —  Anselm,  Thomas 
Aquinas,  Lullus,  and  Abelard, — as  expressing  a  self- 
communicating  God,  in  contradistinction  to  the  incom- 
municable one  of  Judaism  and  Mahommedanism,  or  as 
shadowing  forth  the  encyclic  completeness  of  the  God- 
head in  its  three  chief  aspects  of  Power,  Wisdom,  and 
Love ;  or  Being,  Truth,  and  Action  ;  —  although  no 
part  of  the  gospel,  it  is  a  quickening  and  edifying  view 
of  the  divine  nature.  The  divinity  of  Christ,  under- 
stood, as  modern  orthodoxy  too  often  conceives  it,  in  a 
sense  which  violates  the  humanity  of  Jesus  and  insults 
the  gospel  record  ;  which  leaves  us  but  this  alternative, 
to  conceive  of  God  as  a  once-limited  personality,  or  to 
conceive  of  Jesus  as  a  mere  apparition  by  which  God 
was  manifest ;  —  so  understood,  I  say,  it  is  a  letter 
which  killeth.  But  conceived  as  ancient  orthodoxy 
conceived  and  settled  it,  as  expressing  that  unity  of  the 
human  and  divine  which  was  realized  in  Christ,  it  is  a 
truth  which  "  maketh  alive."  The  doctrine  of  the 
Atonement,  conceived  as  an  historical  transaction  or 


THE    SPIRIT    IN   THE   LETTER.  311 

commercial  arrangement  by  which  God  consents  to 
waive  the  action  of  his  penal  law,  in  its  application 
to  human  kind,  in  consideration  of  the  meritorious 
death  of  Christ,  is  death  to  reason  and  the  moral  sense  ; 
but  conceived  as  a  mediatlns:  and  reconciHno;  influence 
through  the  ministry  of  Christ,  by  which  the  erring  and 
alienated  nature  of  man  is  restored  to  God,  according 
to  the  saying  of  Paul,  that  "God  in  Christ  is  reconciling 
the  world  to  himself;"  —  so  conceived,  the  doctrine  is 
life  to  mind  and  heart. 

The  letter  killeth  in  sacraments  and  rites,  where 
rigid  conventionalism  precludes  spontaneity,  or  where  a 
low  utility  assumes  to  be  the  measure  of  sanctities,  or 
where  the  symbol  becomes  a  fetish  ;  or  where  the  ordi- 
nance is  viewed  as  compulsory  observance,  instead  of  a 
free  communication  or  free-will  offering.  Why  sprin- 
kle water  on  a  baby's  forehead  in  any  other  name, 
utility  asks,  than  that  of  personal  cleanliness,  —  in  any 
other  way  than  that  of  physical  ablution?  Why,  in- 
deed, if  those  sprinkled  drops  are  all  that  baptism 
means  to  you  ?  If  you  see  in  baptism  nothing  but  ritual 
water,  it  is  a  dead  and  deadening  formality.  But  fill 
your  mind  with  the  awful  truth,  that  the  infant,  born 
this  day  into  this  phenomenal  and  vanishing  world,  as 
one  of  Its  phenomena  and  passages,  rising  like  a  bubble 
on  the  great  world-stream  to  fill  a  place  among  the 
shows  of  time,  and  to  act  a  part  in  its  processes,  is  also 
a  child  and  heir  of  eternity,  and  is  born,  at  one  and  the 
same  moment  with  its  time-birth,  into  a  world  of  spirits 
that  is  real  and  eternal,  a  family  of  God,  transcending 
the  home-circle,  and  yet  including  it ;  a  kingdom  of 
God,  transcending  and  including  civil  society ;  a  uni- 


312  EATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

verse  of  God,  transcending  and  including  tlie  mundane 
sphere,  and  connecting  this  breathing  creature  of  to- 
day, this  palpitating  human  animal,  with  the  farthest 
star  that  looks  down  on  its  cradle,  with  the  Church  of 
the  first-born  in  the  infancy  of  time  and  the  Church 
of  the  last-born  in  time's  completeness,  and  with  God, 
the  Judge  of  all,  and  the  Mediator  of  his  love,  and 
which  knows  the  life  just  cast  on  this  shore,  and  claims 
it  as  its  own,  and  yearns  toward  it  out  of  all  its  heavens  ; 
—  consider  this,  and  you  will  see  that  some  open  and 
solemn  recognition  of  this  fact  is  no  vain  ceremony, 
but  a  just  and  becoming  acknowledgment  of  the  image 
of  God  bound  up  in  that  form,  of  the  immortal  destiny 
bound  up  in  that  life.  And  if  water,  the  most  univer- 
sal of  tangible  creations,  and  therefore  fit  type  of  uni- 
versality, is  the  given  and  accepted  symbol  of  all  this 
in  your  sphere  and  time,  then  should  the  water  be 
sacred  in  your  eyes  that  bathes  a  baby's  forehead  in 
the  rite  of  baptism  i»  administered  in  the  name  of  the 
Father,  the  head  of  this  spiritual  All ;  the  Son,  the 
connecting  link  between  him  and  it ;  the  Spirit,  its 
universal  bond.  And  then  is  infant  baptism  not  the 
mere  dash  of  water  on  the  brow :  it  is  the  solemn 
recognition  of  a  new  advent,  the  auspicious  j)resentation 
of  the  new-comer  to  the  general  and  august  assembly  of 
his  spiritual  home. 

The  sacrament  of  the  Supper,  like  that  of  baptism, 
has  its  literal  and  its  spiritual  side.  He  who  sees  in  it 
only  a  bit  of  bread  and  a  sip  of  wine,  of  which  a  com- 
pany of  church-goers  partake  in  common,  will  see  only 
the  letter  that  killeth,  —  a  lifeless  and  killing  formality. 
But  lay  to  heart  the  meaning  which  lies  in  that  word 


THE    SPIRIT   IN   THE   LETTER.  313 

"  communion,"  and  consider  that  this  spiritual  All  of 
which  I  have  spoken  exists  for  us  only  as  we  turn 
toward  it  the  eye  of  our  consciousness,  and  embrace  it 
with  our  thought  and  aspiration,  and  you  will  see  sig- 
nificance and  sanctity  in  whatever  promotes  that  con- 
sciousness or  assists  that  aspiration.  To  him  whose 
faith  can  take  in  the  idea  of  the  general  assembly  of 
our  common  humanity  present  as  one  man  through  all 
its  epochs,  in  all  its  spheres,  the  Supper  is  no  vain 
form,  but  the  highest  act  of  the  consciousness  of  so- 
ciety. It  is  not  the  commemoration  of  an  individual 
merely  that  gives  this  rite  its  true  significance.  The 
memory  of  Christ,  as  the  summit  of  humanity,  is  a 
point  of  meeting  for  all  souls.  Whatever  symbol 
recalls  that  memory  is  a  door  of  communication  with 
the  Church  universal  and  eternal,  comprising  whatever 
is  noble  and  brave  and  wise  and  holy  in  the  past  and 
the  present,  in  heaven  and  on  earth.  The  thought 
which  connects  us  dwellers  in  the  dust  with  the  noble 
army  of  the  immortals  who  have  slied  their  light  on 
the  course  of  time,  and  wrought  their  life  into  this  our 
world,  is  one  of  the  sublimest  revelations  of  the  gospel, 
and  deserves  expression  in  the  rites  of  religion.  This 
is  the  expression  the  Church  has  given  it,  showing  us, 
in  the  Eucharist,  our  part  and  place  in  the  common 
march  and  the  sacred  host.  The  bread  and  wine  which 
it  sets  before  us  are  the  symbols  of  immaterial  nourish- 
ment,—  types  of  the  constant  daily  feast  of  life,  the 
same  for  all  souls  in  all. worlds,  — the  feast  Avhose  food 
is  God's  will  in  daily  work,  whose  guests  are  the  faith- 
ful of  every  faith  and  name,  whose  cheer  is  love,  and 
whose  song  is  praise. 


314  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

The  spirit  in  the  letter,  the  spirit  through  the  letter, 
is  a  lesson  wide  as  human  life,  —  the  reconciliation  of 
ideal  and  actual  in  human  things.  If  the  visible  letter 
of  our  work  be  no  dead  letter  merely,  but  a  genuine 
fruit  of  the  spirit,  a  service  and  a  sacrifice,  into  which 
we  breathe  the  aspiration  and  good-will,  the  faith  and 
the  love,  which  alone  can  make  it  and  make  us  alive, 
it  will  be  an  epistle  from  the  heart  to  the  world  of  our 
time,  in  which  all  who  behold  it  shall  read  the  spirit 
that  was  in  us,  that  possessed  our  thought  and  wrought 
in  our  will,  and  sought  to  express  itself,  not  wholly  in 
vain,  in  our  activity.  Therefore  let  the  spirit  that  stirs 
in  us,  ere  it  evaporate  in  idle  dreams,  or  degenerate 
into  sickly  sentimentality,  hasten  to  record  itself  in 
some  visible  letter  and  condign  work  that  shall  give  it 
eifect.  If  love  springs  in  the  breast,  let  it  rush  Into 
action ;  the  vision  in  the  brain,  let  it  turn  into  deed ; 
let  the  plastic  present  —  the  molten  metal  of  the  hour 
—  receive  the  impress  of  our  will  before  it  stiffens  into 
the  past.  The  world  about  us  is  a  standing  admonition 
to  this  effect,  stamped  all  over  as  it  is  with  the  letter 
of  the  spirits  that  have  gone  before  us,  and  proving 
that  the  smallest  deed  whose  grain  is  good  is  better 
than  the  noblest  aspiration  that  dies  in  the  breast. 


VI. 


SAVING    FAITH. 


VI. 

SAVING    FAITH. 


The  oldest  controversy  in  religion  respects  the  com- 
parative value  of  foith  and  works.  This  contest  per- 
vades the  whole  history  of  man's  spiritual  progress  from 
Abraham  down.  It  arrayed  that  patriarch  against  the 
worshippers  of  Moloch,  his  contemporaries.  It  was 
the  quarrel  between  Brahmanism  and  Buddhism  in 
India.  It  was  the  quarrel  between  Judaism  and  Chris- 
tianity ;  later,  between  Romanism  and  Protestantism, 
between  the  Orthodox  *  and  the  Liberal. 

It  was  the  earliest  topic  of  dispute  in  the  Christian 
Church.  We  find  the  writers  of  the  New  Testament 
at  variance  on  this  point,  maintaining  opposite  sides  of 
this  question.  Paul  maintains  the  sufficiency  of  faith  : 
James  insists  on  the  absolute  necessity  of  works.  Sin- 
gularly enough,  they  both  appeal  to  the  same  example 
in  defence  of  their  res23ective  positions,  —  the  exam- 
ple of  the  patriarch  Abraham.  Paul  cites  him  as  a 
supereminent   instance   of  faith.      "Abraham  believed 


*  Belief  in  orthodoxy,  when  made  a  condition  of  salvation,  is  as  much 
a  species  of  "works  "  as  pilgrimages  or  fasts. 

[317] 


318  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

God,  and  it  was  accounted  to  him  for  righteousness. 
Know  ye,  therefore,  that  they  who  are  of  faith,  the  same 
are  the  children  of  Abraham."  James,  on  the  other 
hand,  magnifies  Abraham's  works  —  his  acts  —  as  the 
real,  meritorious,  justifying,  and  saving  trait  of  the  pa- 
triarchal example.  "  Was  not  Abraham  our  father 
justified  by  works  when  he  had  ofifered  Isaac  his  son 
upon  the  altar?  Seest  thou  how  faith  wrought  with 
his  works,  and  by  works  was  faith  made  perfect?"  To 
this  plea  it  might  have  been  objected,  that  Abraham, 
according  to  the  story,  did  not  sacrifice  his  son,  al- 
though it  was  the  fashion  of  that  time  and  country  to 
do  so.  Parents,  in  that  country,  sacrificed  their  first- 
born, as  a  matter  of  course.  Custom  demanded  it ; 
religion  enjoined  it :  it  was  the  old  Canaanitish  worship. 
What  distinguished  Abraham  from  his  contemporaries 
was,  that  he  did  not  sacrifice  his  first-born.  It  must 
have  cost  him  a  struo'ffle  to  resist  the  universal  custom ; 
but  he  did  resist  it :  and  he  did  so,  not  from  excess  of 
parental  fond  jess,  but  from  a  deeper,  truer  faith.  He 
had  such  faith  in  God  as  to  believe,  contrary  to  the 
geneml  voice,  that  a  man  might  be  justified  without 
that  unnatural  sacrifice.  He  believed  in  the  sacredness 
of  nature ;  he  believed  in  the  still  small  voice  of  the 
heart,  and  God  speaking  in  that ;  and,  though  his  first 
impulse  was  to  comply  with  what  seemed  to  be  the 
dictate  of  religion,  his  second  and  manlier  thought  was 
to  refrain.  If  at  first  he  seemed  to  hear  the  voice  of 
the  Lord,  saying,  "Take  now  thy  son,  thine  only  son, 
Isaac,  whom  thou  lovest,  and  get  thee  into  the  land  of 
Moriah,  and  oflfer  him  there  for  a  burnt-offering,"  he 
listened   aoain   in   a  hiojher   and  healthier  mood,   and 


SAVING  FAITH.  319 

heard  the  command,  "Lay  not  thine  hand  upon  the 
lad,  neither  do  thou  any  thing  unto  him."  So  I  inter- 
pret the  old  tradition.  Abraham  did  not  sacrifice  his 
son  :  he  believed  that  he  mio-ht  fore^-o  the  sacrifice ; 
and  it  was  "  accounted  to  him  for  ris^hteousness."  If 
faith  was  shown  by  a  willingness  to  make  the  offei'ing, 
it  was  still  more  signally  proved  by  withholding  it. 
For  which  requires  the  greater  faith,  —  to  comply  with 
custom  and  tradition,  or  to  refuse  compliance?  Non- 
conformity, no  doubt,  may  sometimes  arise  from  irre- 
ligion  and  unbelief ;  men  may  neglect  a  religious 
ordinance  from  want  of  interest  and  want  of  faith  ;  but 
when  it  is  faith  that  impels  dissent,  as  in  the  case  of 
such  earnest  and  heroic  and  devout  natures  as  are 
sometimes  found  in  that  predicament,  that  faith  is 
unquestionably  greater  than  the  faith  expressed  by  any 
works  of  conformity  and  tradition.  There  can  be  no 
question  that  the  faith  of  Paul  was  something  superior 
to  that  of  the  Jews  of  Damascus,  or  the  silversmiths 
of  Ephesus  ;  or  that  the  faith  of  John  Huss  was  su- 
perior to  that  of  the  bishops  who  assisted  at  the  Council 
of  Constance ;  or  Luther's  to  that  of  Leo  X.  ;  or  the 
faith  of  Georoje  Fox  to  that  of  the  mas^istrates  of  Man- 
Chester  and  AYorcester. 

Paul  but  puts  into  words  what  Abraham,  three  thou- 
sand years  before,  had  uttered  in  action,  when  he  says, 
"  The  just  shall  live  by  faith." 

When  we  speak  of  salvation  by  faith,  we  do  not 
mean  that  a  man  is  saved  by  his  orthodoxy.  Else 
were  the  greater  part  of  the  woiM  irrevocably  doomed, 
—  all  the  pagan  world,  and  the  greater  part  of  the 
Christian,  —  the  greater  part,  and,  I  fancy,  the  better 


320  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

part ;  so  tliat  the  remnant  saved  would  not  much  com- 
mend the  salvation,  or  exalt  the  Saviour  in  the  world's 
judgment.  There  is  no  saving  power  in  orthodoxy ; 
there  is  no  saving  power  in  mere  belief  of  any  kind, 
except  as  belief  may  be  symptomatic,  indicating  a 
receptivity  of  mind  ;  and  that  receptivity  a  vitality 
which  certainly  is  saving,  —  say,  rather,  which  is  sal- 
vation. Then,  however,  it  is  not  because  the  belief 
is  dogmatically  correct  that  it  saves.  It  may  not  be 
correct,  and  yet  be  saving,  so  far  as  the  state  of  mind 
in  the  believer  is  concerned.  Setting  aside  the  influence 
on  the  life,  a  man  shall  as  soon  be  saved  by  believing 
with  the  Hindu  in  the  incarnations  of  Vishnu,  as  by 
behevino^  with  the  Christian  in  the  Word  made  flesh. 

Salvation  by  faith  means  two  things.  It  means  that 
man's  destiny  is  determined  by  what  he  is,  not  by  what 
he  does ;  and  it  means  that  confidence  itself  is  salva- 
tion. 

1.  A  man's  destiny  is  determined  by  what  he  is,  and 
not  by  what  he  does.  In  other  words,  being  is  more 
than  doinof.  This  is  the  Christian  view  of  salvation,  as 
interpreted  by  Paul.  And  so  truly  and  specifically 
Christian  is  this  view,  that  I  am  tempted  to  call  it  a 
discovery  of  Christianity,  —  a  spiritual  truth  which 
Christianity  first  brought  to  light.  Not  what  we  do, 
but  what  we  are.  The  old  theory,  the  childish,  pagan, 
Jewish  theory  of  salvation, — the  theory  which  still 
most  widely  prevails,  even  in  Chrlstenaora  still  pre- 
vails,—  is  precisely  the  reverse  of  this  :  it  puts  doing 
before  being ;  it  recko'ns  by  works  ;  it  tries  a  man  by 
tale  and  stint,  as  a  task-master  tries  a  slave.  Now,  it 
must  be  granted  that  human  judgments  are  necessarily 


SAVING  FAITH.  321 

based  on  the  standard  of  action.  What  a  man  does, 
that  he  is,  we  say,  and  say  truly ;  for,  generally  speak- 
ing, we  know  men  only  by  their  works.  Nay,  more, 
in  judging  of  ourselves,  we  haA^e  to  apply  the  same  test. 
For  who  dare  flatter  himself  that  he  is  wise  and  charita- 
ble and  devout,  when  all  his  conduct  bears  witness  to 
the  contrary  ?  But  observe  that  this  test  is  safely  appli- 
cable only  as  a  negative  criterion  :  it  is  a  very  doubtful 
one  if  we  apply  it  positively.  In  the  absence  of  all 
works,  or  where  the  works  are  only  evil,  we  are  safe  in 
inferring  moral  deficiency  or  moral  corruption  ;  but  we 
cannot  reverse  the  criterion,  and  rate  the  internal 
goodness  of  the  man  by  the  external  goodness  of  the 
act,  which  may  or  may  not  be  the  genuine  offspring  of 
the  heart. 

False  religion  puts  doing  before  being :  it  reckons 
by  works.  It  has  always  been  so.  I  account  for  it 
thus  :  The  sense  of  accountableness  is  instinctive  in 
man,  and  suggests  a  Power  which  punishes  and  re- 
w^ards,  and  whose  punishments  and  rewards  the  childish 
mind  conceives  to  be  regulated  by  the  same  standard 
which  governs  earthly  authorities, — the  parent,  the 
task -master,  the  governor,  in  appointing  theirs, — 
compliance  or  non-compliance  with  external  require- 
ments. This  is  the  first  rude  conception  of  moral 
accountableness,  —  something  done  to  please  God,  to 
win  his  favor  and  avert  his  wrath.     Hence  the  inquiry, 

—  perplexing,  doubtful,  anxious, — What  must  I  do  to 
be  saved?  the  feelins*  that  somethino"  is  to  be  done 
to  satisfy  and  gratify  Almighty  Power.  Hence  the 
idea,  —  so  natural,  so  universal,  so  hard  to  eradicate, 

—  salvation  by  works. 

21 


322  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

Judaism  was  no  wiser  in  this  than  other  religions, 
though  wiser  and  better  in  so  many  respects.  The 
Jewish  idea  of  human  accountableness  waa  that  of  a 
God  who  sets  his  people  stints,  and  rewards  and  pun- 
ishes accordingly.  So  Paul  described  it :  *^  The  law  is 
not  of  faith ;  but  the  man  that  doeth  them  shall  live  by 
them."  The  Jewish  relis^ion  was  a  tariff  of  duties 
levied  on  its  subjects,  with  corresponding  forfeitures, 
exacted  ad  valorem,  for  every  article  omitted  or  trans- 
gressed. The  Christian  religion,  in  its  principle  and 
essence,  averse  to  all  this,  as  interpxeted  by  Paul,  was 
yet  converted  into  this  by  the  mtsapprehension  and 
misguided  zeal  of  the  ages  following.  And,  because 
the  gospel  had  set  no  stints,  the  Christians  of  the  East, 
and,  after  them,  the  Christians  of  the  West,  began  to 
stint  and  task  themselves  with  works  by  which  they 
hoped  to  earn  salvation.  They  made  their  dwellings  in 
deserts  and  caves ;  they  spent  their  lives  in  saying 
prayers ;  they  subsisted  on  the  scantiest  and  poorest 
food ;  they  wore  haircloth  ;  they  scourged  their  flesh, 
and  in  every  way  made  life  as  uncomfortable  as  bodily 
privation  and  hardship  could  make  it.  In  process  of 
time,  the  Church  authorities  took  it  upon  themselves  to 
prescribe  these  works  and  impose  these  stints  on 
their  subjects.  The  Church  had  its  tariff  of  good 
works,  and  dispensed  the  salvation  of  which  it  assumed 
the  administration  and  control,  in  conformity  with  it. 
All  Judaism  came  back  with  the  penances  and  fasts, 
the  pilgrimages  and  mulcts,  and  other  prescriptions, 
of  the  Church  of  Rome.  Instead  of  Christ  being 
"the  end  of  the  law  of  righteousness,"  as  Paul  had 
predicted,  a  new  law  of  righteousness  (or  a  new  law- 


SAVING  FAITH.  323 

righteousness)  was  instituted  in  his  name.  The  ex- 
ploded principle,  "He  that  doeth  them  shall  live  by 
them,"  was  revived  and  adopted  by  the  recreant  Church 
as  the  Christian  rule.  So  inveterate  is  man's  proclivity 
to  materialize  in  religion,  to  convert  the  most  interior 
concerns  of  the  soul  into  formalities  and  business  trans- 
actions, to  look  abroad  for  that  which  only  the  heart 
can  give,  to  trade  in  the  unmerchantable.  Every 
revival  of  religion  is  a  protest  against  this  one  ever- 
lasting mistake.  When  Luther,  in  his  younger  days, 
as  a  pious  monk  and  obedient  son  of  the  Church,  was 
climbing  on  his  knees,  according  to  prescribed  usage, 
the  sacred  staircase  of  the  Lateran  Church,  he  recalled 
the  saying,  "  The  just  shall  live  by  faith."  With  that 
recollection  began  a  crisis  in  the  history  of  religion. 
Christianity  was  new-born  in  that  hour,  —  the  end, 
once  more,  "  of  the  law  of  righteousness  to  every  one 
that  believeth." 

Has  Protestantism,  then,  entirely  outgrown  this 
error  in  all  its  applications  ?  We  have  ceased  to  rely 
on  ecclesiastical  good  works,  on  pilgrimages  and  fasts  : 
do  we  not  still  cherish  the  belief  in  salvation  by  moral? 
The  Pauline  principle  applies  to  these  as  well  as  those. 
Moral  works  are  as  valueless  as  ecclesiastical,  when 
undertaken  upon  speculation,  as  means  and  conditions 
of  salvation.  Temperance,  chastity,  charity,  are  saving 
gi'aces  when  they  exist  as  genuine  fruits  of  the  Spirit : 
they  lose  that  sa\ing  quality  when  adopted  as  expe- 
dients and  means  to  an  end.  Action,  like  belief,  is 
merely  symptomatic.  The  best  acts  are  valuable  and 
saving  only  as  authentic  exponents  of  the  moral  life. 
If  they  do  not  truly  express  that  life,  if  they  have  any 


324  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

other  source  than  that  life,  they  are  spiritually  worth- 
less, like  promissory  notes  from  an  empty  vault. 

Not  what  a  man  does,  but  what  he  is,  is  his  justifica- 
tion or  condemnation.  Doing  may  be  copied,  being 
cannot.  All  the  graces  can  be  imitated ;  but  grace  is 
original  in  every  man  in  whom  it  exists.  Works  may 
be  borrowed  ;  but  the  heart  is  man's  own. 

Every  religion,  in  turn,  repeats  the  illusion  about 
salvation  as  a  bargain  with  God,  a  good  to  be  pur- 
chased with  a  price.  But  what  price  can  purchase 
heaven,  if  we  come  to  the  question  of  equivalents,  —  of 
value  earned  by  service  rendered?  Who  is  sufficient 
for  such  a  trade  ?  Who  so  rich  and  strong  and  good 
as  to  oiFer  an  equivalent  for  heavenly  gifts  ?  Who  has 
that  which  God  so  needs,  and  has  so  much  of  it,  that 
God  will  think  it  worth  the  while,  as  a  matter  of  profita- 
ble trade,  to  sell  him  eternal  blessedness  therefor? 
The  best  of  us  can  do  no  more  than  pay,  as  he  goes,  for 
all  that  he  receives,  and  has  received  during  all  the 
years  when  he  could  do  nothing.  Can  the  best  of  us 
do  even  that  ? 

But,  though  our  good  works  can  be  no  equivalent, 
may  they  not  be  still  a  condition  of  salvation, — the 
terms  which  God  has  seen  fit  to  exact  in  return  for  that 
great  boon?  Suppose  it  to  be  so,  what  are  those 
terms?  If  there  is  such  a  covenant,  expressed  or  un- 
derstood, what  is  man's  part  in  the  contract?  Nothing 
less,  surely,  than  obedience  to  God's  law.  Now,  if 
God  has  made  our  well-being  to  depend  on  strict  obedi- 
ence to  the  moral  law,  then  our  moral  welfare  is  for- 
feited by  disobedience  to  that  law,  not  only  by  gross 
and   continued   disobedience,    but   by  all   disobedience 


SAVING  FAITH.  325 

whatsoever.  Every  violation  of  the  moral  law  violates 
the  contract.  This  is  Paul's  argument.  But  every 
one  does  violate  it.  "There  is  none  righteous,"  in  that 
sense;  "no,  not  one."  "They  are  all  gone  out  of  the 
way."  It  is  impossible  not  to  violate  it.  Perfect 
obedience  is  practically  impossible.  It  is  what  no  one 
has  yet  accomplished,  or  will  accomplish.  It  is  impos- 
sible, because  man  is  not  a  machine,  but  a  spirit.  You 
may  construct  a  machine  with  such  precision  that  it 
shall  perform  a  given  work  in  a  given  manner.  You 
may  construct  it  with  such  precision  that  the  action  of 
the  motive  power  on  each  part  shall  be  reduced  to  a 
certainty ;  the  function  of  every  wheel  and  screw  may 
be  determined  and  controlled,  —  so  far  and  no  farther, 
so  much  and  no  more  in  a  given  time.  Such  a  machine 
may  be  made  for  a  while  to  perform  its  whole  duty,  and 
nothing  but  its  duty.  But  even  a  machine  will  become 
disordered  in  time,  and  sin  against  the  law  written  in 
its  constitution,  by  neglect  or  transgression.  But  man 
is  not  so  fashioned,  and  cannot  be  so  managed,  or  so 
manage  himself.  He  cannot  be  made  to  perform  all 
possible  duties,  and  keep  the  whole  law  of  God,  with 
that  mechanical  exactness  with  which  the  hands  of  a 
clock  perform  a  certain  number  of  revolutions  in  a  given 
time.  Let  him  try  the  experiment  for  a  single  day. 
Let  him  undertake  for  one  whole  day  to  fulfil  the  law 
in  every  minute  particular,  positive  and  negative,  in 
thought  as  well  as  deed ;  to  do  every  thing  which  he 
ought  to  do,  in  the  way  in  which  he  ought  to  do  it ; 
and  to  do  nothing,  say  nothing,  think  nothing,  which 
he  ought  not.  Let  him  at  night  subject  the  history  of 
that  day  to  a  rigorous  scrutiny  ;  and,  if  his  conscience  is 


326  EATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

but  moderately  enlightened,  he  will  discover,  that,  with 
the  best  intention,  he  has  not  been  perfect  for  one  whole 
day,  —  that  the  day  might  possibly  have  been  better 
spent  than  it  was.  With  the  best  intention  and  the 
uttermost  endeavor,  he  has  still  come  short  of  the  mark. 
Man  is  a  poor  creature,  if  he  is  to  be  judged  in  this 
way ;  he  is  less  perfect  than  a  steam-engine  or  a  watch. 
"  By  the  deeds  of  the  law  shall  no  flesh  be  justified  ;  for 
all  have  sinned,  and  come  short  of  the  glory  of  God." 
The  Mohammedans  have  a  fable,  that  the  soul,  before 
it  can  enter  paradise,  must  cross  a  bridge,  narrow  as 
the  edge  of  a  sword,  over  a  gulf  of  fire  ;  and  that  no  one 
can  be  saved  who  does  not  endure  this  test.  A  good 
illustration,  this,  of  the  doctrine  of  salvation  by  works. 
To  attempt  to  win  heaven  by  this  method  is  like  the 
attempt  to  cross  a  gulf  of  fire  on  the  edge  of  a  sword. 
Forlorn  would  be  our  prospect,  perdition  our  doom,  if 
our  destiny  depended  solely  on  our  works. 

To  remedy  this  diflficulty,  to  complement  this  defi- 
ciency of  human  virtue,  theologians,  still  clinging  to 
the  notion  of  a  law  to  which  perfect  obedience  is  the 
one  indispensible  condition  of  salvation,  have  proposed 
a  substitute  in  the  person  of  Christ.  At  first,  it  was 
the  perfect  obedience  of  Christ  which  answered,  instead 
of  other  men's  obedience,  and  satisfied  the  law  on  their 
behalf;  more  recently,  it  is  the  death  of  Christ,  which, 
received  as  the  penalty  of  sin,  serves  instead  of  the 
punishment  of  sinners,  and  insures  their  salvation  in 
spite  of  transgression.  It  is  not  my  purpose,  at  pres- 
ent, to  criticise  these  views.  The  error  lies  in  the 
prior  assumption,  that  salvation  is  made  by  divine  decree 
to  depend  on  perfect  and  exact  obedience  to  the  moral 


SAVING   FAITH.  327 

law  ;  that  is ,  on  works  :  in  strange  and  direct  contradic- 
tion to  the  teaching  of  Paul,  who  shows  that  the  ground 
of  salvation  is  faith. 

Not  what  we  ,do,  but  what  w^e  are,  is  the  strength 
of  our  present,  and  the  hope  of  our  future,  if  any 
strength  there  is  in  us,  or  any  hope  for  us.  There  are 
cases,  no  doubt,  in  which  the  actions  of  men  are  better 
than  their  hearts.  Whited  sepulchres  there  are,  fair 
without,  not  wanting  in  good  works,  but  inwardly  full 
of  treachery  and  uncleanness.  What  are  the  acts  of 
such  natures  worth?  Suppose  them  to  be  ten  times 
fairer  than  they  are,  can  their  works  save  them? 

But  most  men,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  are  a  great  deal 
better  than  their  works.  Their  inward  life  is  more 
divine  than  all  the  manifestations  of  it  that  have  yet 
appeared.  The  best  of  men  would  seem  to  us  less 
perfect  than  they  do,  did  we  not  impute  to  them  a  good- 
ness exceeding  all  their  actions.  Jesus  would  not  be 
to  us  the  pure  ideal  that  he  is,  did  we  not  suppose  him 
to  be  better  than  his  life,  divine  as  that  is.  We  feel 
that  what  he  did  was  a  very  small  part  of  what  he  was  ; 
his  nature  was  not  all  expressed  in  his  works  :  there 
was  more  vh^tue  in  him  than  went  out  of  him.  The 
exisrencies  of  his  condition  did  not  exhaust  all  the  ful- 
ness  of  his  divine  humanity ;  the  mould  was  not  equal 
to  the  form.  He  stands  in  our  apprehension  immeasu- 
rably great  behind  his  works,  more  honored  for  what 
he  was,  in  our  ideal,  than  for  what  he  did.  Most  of  us, 
it  is  to  be  hoped,  are  better  than  our  works.  It  is  to 
be  hoped  there  is  more  goodness  in  us  than  appears. 
The  conduct  is  a  very  imperfect  exponent  of  the  inner 
life.     Still,  if  the  inner  life  is  sound  and  strong,  it  will 


328  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

sooner  or  later  justify  itself  in  action,  and  justify  the 
actor.  But  the  justifying  power  is  not  in  the  act,  but 
in  the  faith  that  produced  it.  The  virtue  resides  not  in 
the  fruit,  but  in  the  tree.  You  value  the  trees  in  your 
orchard  for  their  fruit-bearing  power,  not  for  the  fruit 
that  hangs  on  them  at  the  time.  That  tree  must  be  a 
poor  one,  which  is  not  worth  more  than  its  present 
crop. 

Beinsr  before  doins^,  —  fhis  is  the  interior  truth  which 
lies  in  the  doctrine  of  salvation  by  faith.  And  another 
thino^  is  meant  bv  it.     It  means,  — 

2.  That  confidence  in  salvation,  in  one's  own  salva- 
tion, is  essential  to  salvation  ;  nay,  more,  that  it  is  sal- 
vation. Does  this  statement  seem  questionable?  I  see 
very  clearly  the  abuse  that  may  be  made  of  it ;  never- 
theless, it  is  the  doctrine  of  Paul,  if  I  rightly  understand 
him.  It  is  the  doctrine  of  Luther,  the  best  interpreter 
of  Paul,  because  interpreting  him  out  of  a  kindred 
spirit  and  similar  circumstances. 

Believe  that  you  are  saved,  and  you  are  saved.  Such 
a  belief  must  be  the  result  of  an  inward  experience 
which  justifies  it.  But  may  there  not  be  a  false  con- 
fidence, an  overweening  pharisaic  conceit,  like  that  re- 
corded of  the  Rabbi  Jeremias?  "I  saw  the  sons  of 
the  Feast ;  they  are  very  few  in  number.  If  there  are 
a  thousand,  I  and  my  son  are  of  the  number ;  if  a 
hundred,  I  and  my  son  are  of  the  number ;  if  there  are 
two,  I  and  my  son  are  they."  To  this  I  reply.  Conceit 
is  one  thing,  and  belief  is  another.  The  faith  which  this 
view  supposes  is  not  born  of  conceit,  but  of  verity. 

It  is  easy  to  put  cases  which  shall  seem  to  make 
the   doctrine   ridiculous.      There   is    Graceless,  whom 


SAVING  FAITH.  329 

we  all  know,  a  thorough  worldling,  selfish,  haid, 
sensual,  mean.  Suppose  that  Graceless  fancies  his 
salvation  sure,  is  he  therefore  saved  ?  The  presumption 
is,  that  Graceless  bestows  no  thought  upon  the  matter  : 
but,  if  he  does,  you  may  be  sure  he  feels  no  such  confi- 
dence as  you  suppose ;  you  may  be  sure  that  salvation 
to  him  looks  very  problematical. 

There  are  cases  of  indifference,  —  of  what  may  be 
called  a  negative  confidence,  the  taking-for-granted  of 
ignorance  and  unbelief.     And  there  are  cases  in  which 
the  moral  life  is  apparently  too  feeble  to  weather  the 
crisis  of  death,  and  survive  the  dissolution  of  the  mortal 
frame.     If  ever  souls  so  destitute  of  spiritual  life  can 
r^over  themselves  from  the  wreck  of  mortality,  if  they 
are  to  assume  a  conscious  existence  hereafter,  it  is  only 
through  sore  pangs  and  bitter  travail,  if  at  all,  that 
the  moral  life   can  be  born   again.      There    are   also 
cases  of  superstitious  terror,  of  doubt  and  despair,  ex- 
perienced  by  very   worthy   people,    induced   by   false 
religion,  where  the  spirit  of  adoption   and  filial   trust 
has  not  yet  replaced  the  spirit  of  bondage  and  of  fear. 
All  that  is  disease.     All  anxiety  about  salvation,   all 
fears  about  the  future,  fears  of  death  and  judgment  to 
come,  in  really  good  people,  in  those  who  love   and 
seek  the   right,   are   morbid    affections.     The   healthy 
soul  casts  off  all  that.     Conscious  of  right  purposes, 
believing  in   God,   it  never  troubles   itself  about   the 
hereafter :  it  commits  its  future,  without  misgiving,  to 
the  infinite  Father,  not  doubting  that  the  Power  which 
has  brought  us  thus  far,  and  kept  us  hitherto,  will  be  as 
near  to  us  in  every  coming  state  as  here  and  now,  and 
equally  able  and  equally  willing  to  guide  and  to  bless. 


330  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

The  perfection  of  spiritual  growth  gives  us  back  the 
unconsciousness  of  primitive  man,  when  life  flowed  on 
from  its  source  to  its  close  without  question  or  fear  of 
the  hereafter.  I  figure  to  myself  a  state  when  this 
unconsciousness,  like  some  lost  paradise,  shall  be  re- 
gained ;  when  the  emancipated  spirit,  having  realized 
its  own  nature  by  complete  development,  and  having 
outgrown  the  dreary  period  of  self-questioning,  shall  be 
conscious  of  no  obligation,  shall  never  hear  the  "  stern 
daughter  of  the  voice  of  God ;  "  but  follow  its  own 
impulse  with  absolute  freedom,  and  never  stray ;  shall 
gravitate  to  good  by  divine  necessity,  and  know  not 
that  it  is  good,  and  know  no  merit  in  seeking  it,  because 
there  is  no  evil  in  its  consciousness  with  which  to  con- 
trast it.  A  seraph  at  work  is  a  child  at  play,  combin- 
ing the  earnestness  of  settled  purpose  with  the  freshness 
of  immediate  impulse,  and  the  glow  of  a  momentary 
mood.  Will  such  an  one  ask,  "What  shall  I  do  to 
be  saved  ?  "  Will  the  sun  desire  to  know  the  method 
of  its  shining,  or  the  stars  how  far  to  cast  their  ray ; 
or  the  rushing  and  rejoicing  river,  the  meaning  and 
purpose  of  its  course?  The  emancipated  spirit  has 
outgrown  all  questions ;  it  derives  its  knowledge,  not 
through  the  troubled  medium  of  the  questioning,  grop- 
ing, prying,  doubting  intellect,  but  directly  from  the 
fountain-light  of  the  purified,  perfected  will.  It  knows 
by  doing,  and  in  knowing  does.  Knowing,  doing, 
willing,  loving,  are  no  longer  the  severed  and  unequal 
functions  of  a  halting  and  distracted  life,  but  one  undi- 
vided, spontaneous  action  of  a  life  as  serene  as  the 
source  from  which  it  flows. 


VII. 
THE  AGE  OF  GRACE; 


OB, 


ATONEMENT  WITHOUT  EXPIATION. 


VII. 
ATONEMENT  WITHOUT  EXPIATION. 


*'  Die  Vernichtung  der  Siinde,  dieser  alten  Last  der  Menscheit,  und  allgs 
Glaubens  an  Busse  und  Siihnung,  ist  durch  die  OfFenbarung  des  Christen- 
thums  eigentlich  bewirkt  worden.  *  —  Novalis. 


The  years  of  the  Christian  era  are  technically  styled 
years  "of  grace."  The  term  is  used  without,  I  suspect, 
an  adequate  sense  of  the  import  and  fitness  of  that 
designation.  The  word  "grace"  —  synonymous  with 
"  pardoning  mercy  "  —  denotes  a  special  and  character- 
istic trait  of  the  Christian  religion  ;  a  fundamental  dis- 
tinction between  it  and  other  relii^ions.  I  know  of  no 
other  religion  in  which  pardoning  mercy  forms  a  con- 
stitutive, organic  element, — none  which  assures  for- 
giveness of  sins  to  penitent  souls  on  the  simple  condi- 
tion of  repentance,  and  so  absolves  from  the  superstitious 
fears  w^hich  other  reliofions  connect  with  the  thought 
of  God  and  the  hereafter. 

I  find  in  other  religions  the  principle  of  propitiation, 
which  is  quite  a  different  thing.     When  the  gods  of 

*  The  proper  effect  of  the  Christian  revelation  is  the  annihilation  of 
sin,  —  the  ancient  burden  of  humanity,  and  of  all  belief  in  penance  and 
expiation. 

[333] 


334  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

the  Gentiles  were  supposed,  by  their  votaries,  to  be 
incensed  by  neglect  cr  transgression,  the  only  way  to 
pacify  them,  to  bring  back  the  averted  eye  of  their 
blessing,  was  to  offer  animal  sacrifices.  So  only  could 
the  Powers  be  propitiated  and  the  sin  atoned.  Even 
this  method  was  not  always  effectual.  The  wrath  of 
the  J^umen,  as  we  read  in  the  old  myths,  would  some- 
times continue  to  burn  with  immitigable  fury  against 
the  offender,  and  even  against  his  remote  posterity,  as 
in  the  case  of  "Pelops'  line."  And,  when  effectual,  the 
result  was  not  forgiveness,  but  expiation  ;  not  grace,  but 
quittance ;  not  pardoning  mercy,  but  satisfied  ire.  So 
the  Jehovah  of  the  Hebrews  is  represented  as  propitiated 
by  sin-offerings  and  trespass-offerings,  Avhich  the  priest 
was  required  to  offer  with  exact  and  complicated  rites 
for  the  sins  of  the  people,  that  they  might  be  remitted. 
For  without  blood,  by  the  Law  of  Moses,  there  was 
"no  remission."  The  writers  of  the  New  Testament, 
and  especially  the  writer  to  the  Hebrews,  transfer  this 
idea  of  sacrifice  from  the  old  dispensation  to  the  new. 
They  represent  the  blood  of  Christ  as  the  substitute  for 
the  blood  of  bullocks  and  of  lambs.  By  such  repre- 
sentations they  describe  the  subjective  fruits  of  Christ's 
ministry,  —  of  his  death  as  the  consummation  of  that 
ministry,  —  not  the  objective  nature  of  his  work,  viewed 
in  its  relation  to  the  Godhead.  The  language  is  figu- 
rative, not  dogmatic.  I  see  not  how  any  other  inter- 
pretation could  ever  have  been  put  upon  it  by  Christians. 
Nothing  in  the  history  of  opinions  is  more  marvellous 
than  that  Christian  theologians  should  fail  to  see,  that 
by  treating  Christ's  death  as  the  satisfaction  of  a  debt, 
whether  in  the  sacrificial  sense   of  expiation,   or   the 


ATONEMENT   WITHOUT    EXPIATION.  335 

governmental  sense  of  a  shift  or  compromise,  they  rule 
out  of  Christianity  precisely  that  which  constitutes  its 
most  distinctive  feature,  —  Grace.  They  reduce  it  to 
the  level  of  the  elder  religions,  in  which  law  and  sacrifice 
were  predominant  elements.  In  what  sense  can  grace 
be  said  to  have  come  with  Christ,  if  the  Christian's  God, 
like  the  Jew's  and  the  Gentile's,  is  a  Being  whose 
enmity  is  provoked  by  sin,  and  propitiated  by  sacrifice? 
with  this  remarkable  difference,  that,  while  the  Gentile 
or  Jewish  Divinity  was  alienated  from  individuals  and 
tribes,  by  individual  and  ancestral  transgressions,  and 
reconciled  by  the  blood  of  bulls  and  rams,  "the  God 
and  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ "  is  represented  as 
alienated  from  the  entire  race  of  man  by  the  moral 
infirmity  of  the  first  pair,  and  reconciled  only  by  the 
blood  of  a  man.  Surely,  on  this  supposition,  the 
Christian's  God  is  less  gracious  than  any  other.  In- 
stead of  living  under  a  dispensation  of  grace,  we  are 
under  a  dispensation  of  inexorable  law.  Instead  of  a 
Heavenly  Father,  we  have  only  a  Hebrew  Jehovah  or 
Olympian  Jove. 

The  gospel  was  meant  to  be  a  message  of  glad 
tidings  :  any  system  of  theology  which  makes  it  a  mes- 
sage of  bad  tidinsrs,  carries  falsehood  on  its  face.  Its 
message  is  grace;  and  its  grace  is  peculiar  to  it, — the 
grace  of  God,  which  by  faith  and  repentance  absolves 
from  sin,  and  redeems  from  the  terrors  of  divine  wrath, 
which  the  consciousness  of  sin  awakens  in  the  soul. 

Keligious  terrors  are  incident  to  all  faiths,  and  com- 
mon to  all  nations.  Christianity  alone  reveals  the  grace 
that  delivers  from  this  torment ;  the  perfect  love  which 
casteth  out  fear.     Let  us  glance  for  a  moment  at  other 


336  EATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

dispensations,   and  compare  them  with  the  gospel  in 
this  particular. 

If  there  is  any  nation  of  antiquity  which  might  be 
supposed  to  be  exempt  from  spiritual  terrors,  it  is  the 
Greeks,  —  a  cheerful  people,  who  seem  to  have  lived 
a  life  of  the  senses,  thoroughly  at  home,  and  perfectly 
content  with  this  visible  world ;  caring  little  for  any 
other ;  having  no  faith  and  no  interest  in  the  spiritual, 
except  a  poetic  and  an  artistic  one.  Such  is  the  char- 
acter of  the  Greeks  as  represented  in  poetry  and  art. 
But  go  behind  these  manifestations,  inquire  from  other 
sources  the  state  of  mind  of  the  Greeks  on  the  subject 
of  religion,  and  you  will  find  that,  where  atheism  had 
not  neutralized  the  idea  of  God,  the  mind  was  haunted 
by  religious  fears.  Wherever  there  was  enough  of 
belief  in  Divinity  to  constitute  religion,  there  was 
superstition.  A  Latin  poet  praises  the  atheist  Epicu- 
rus for  beino*  the  first  to  deliver  men  from  this  fear. 
Atheism,  in  his  view,  was  the  only  salvation.  Plutarch, 
whose  writin2:s  brinsr  us  nearer  to  the  mind  of  the 
ancients  than  any  others,  has  depicted  superstition  in 
a  way  which  shows  what  the  terrors  of  religion  must 
have  been,  with  no  revelation  of  divine  grace  to  miti- 
gate their  gloom.  "  The  victim  of  spiritual  terrors,"  he 
says,  "has  no  hiding-place,  no  refuge.  Poly  crates  was 
the  scourge  of  Samos,  and  Periander  of  Corinth ;  but 
one  could  escape  both,  and  find  shelter  in  some  free  and 
equal  government.  But  he  who  fears  the  divine  gov- 
ernment as  an  inexorable,  implacable  tyranny,  whither 
can  he  remove,  or  whither  can  he  flee?  What  land  or 
what  sea  can  he  find  where  God  is  not?  Miserable 
man !   in  what  corner  of  the  world  canst  thou   be  so 


ATONEMENT   WITHOUT    EXPIATION.  337 

concealed  as  to  think  thou  hast  escaped  him  ?  Slaves 
are  allowed  by  the  law,  when  despairing  of  their  free- 
dom, to  demand  another  sale,  in  the  hope  of  obtaining 
kinder  masters.  But  superstition  allows  no  change  of 
gods ;  and  where  could  he  find  a  god  whom  he  would 
not  fear,  who  dreads  his  father's  and  his  own  ?  A  slave 
may  fly  to  aA  altar ;  and  they  that  are  pursued  by  an 
enemy  think  themselves  safe  if  they  can  but  lay  hold 
of  a  statue  or  shrine :  but  the  superstitious  fear  and 
tremble  there  most  where  others,  even  the  most  timid, 
take  courage.  Death  itself  puts  no  end  to  this  foolish 
dread.  It  extends  its  fears  beyond  the  grave ;  and, 
after  the  sorrows  of  this  world,  looks  forward  to  suffer- 
ings that  never  end.  Then  open  I  know  not  what 
gates  of  hell  from  beneath,  rivers  of  fire,  Stygian  tor- 
rents, judges  and  tormentors,  ghastly  spectres  and 
endless  woes." 

Such  was  the  religion  of  the  most  polished  nation  of 
antiquity,  in  the  experience  of  those  who  were  spiritual 
enough  to  regard  religion  as  any  thing  more  than  a 
civil  institution.  It  was  a  religion  of  fear,  in  which  no 
voice  of  grace  spoke  comfort  to  the  stricken  and  trem- 
bling soul,  overwhelmed  with  the  terrors  of  the  invisible. 

Still  more  remarkable  is  the  absence  of  grace  in  the 
two  great  systems  of  Eastern  and  Southern  Asia,  — 
Brahmanism  and  its  offspring,  Buddhism.  In  these 
religions  every  sin  is  unpardonable,  and  must  be  expia- 
ted by  a  separate  life  in  some  new  state  whose  condi- 
tions are  determined  by  the  errors  of  this.  When  the 
soul  is  separated  from  the  body  by  death,  it  migrates 
into  some  new  body,  —  it  may  be  of  a  man,  or  it  may 
be  of  a  brute, — in  which  it  must  bear  the  penalty  of 

22 


338  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITr. 

some  particular  sin,  committed  in  some  former  state. 
According  to  the  Buddhist  conception,  all  life  is  penal. 
The  life  which  we  lead  in  this  body  is  charged  with  the 
penalties  of  past  transgressions,  of  which  the  soul  has 
been  guilty  in  unremembered  lives  antecedent  to  this ; 
and  the  life  that  now  is,  has  its  own  transgressions  to 
be  atoned  for  in  lives  to  come.  Thus  the  soul  passes 
from  life  to  life,  from  body  to  body ;  through  form  after 
form,  grade  after  grade,  of  humanity  and  animality ; 
through  princes  and  beggars,  and  cats  and  dogs,  and 
creeping  things, — ascending  and  descending ;  now  soar- 
ing into  spiritual  day,  now  steeped  in  thickest  night  of 
sense ;  still  atoning,  and  sinning  and  atoning  again ; 
until,  after  ages  of  mundane  experience,  every  sin  ex- 
piated, every  blot  wiped  out,  the  pilgrim  spirit  arrives 
at  last  at  its  destined  goal.  And  that  goal,  — the  end 
of  all  these  wanderings,  the  fruit  of  all  this  discipline, 
—  what  is  it  ?  Hear,  O  Christian  !  and  compassionate 
the  infinite  despair  which  lurks  in  the  doctrine.  Anni- 
hilation !  The  privilege  of  non-existence  ;  extinction  of 
the  individual  being,  absorption  in  the  universal  Being ; 
the  soul  dissolved  in  blank  unconsciousness,  which,  if  not 
absolute  annihilation,  is  personal  decease  In  every  prac- 
tical sense  of  the  term.  The  gospel  says,  "The  wages 
of  sin  is  death ;  "  but  the  faithful  soul  "  is  passed  from 
death  unto  life."  Buddhism  says,  "The  wages  of  sin 
is  life ;  but  the  perfect  soul  passes  from  life  to  death. 
Life  is  penance  ;  extinction  is  salvation." 

I  find  in  all  these  religions  no  sign  of  pardoning 
mercy,  no  trace  of  those  ideas  so  prominent  in  the  gos- 
pel, —  the  efficacy  of  repentance,  and  forgiveness  of 
sins. 


ATONEMENT   WITHOUT    EXPIATION.  339 

These  ideas,  it  is  true,  are  found  in  the  writings  of 
the  Jewish  dispensation ;  and,  although  the  religion  of 
Moses  is  characterized  as  "  law "  in  contrast  with  the 
grace  which  came  by  Christ,  the  Old  Testament  con- 
tains the  nearest  approximation  to  the  gospel,  the  most 
clear  and  emphatic  declarations  of  forgiveness  to  be 
found  in  any  of  the  elder  religions.  "  The  Lord  is 
merciful  and  gracious,  slow  to  anger,  and  plenteous  in 
mercy.  He  will  not  always  chide,  neither  will  he  keep 
his  answer  for  ever.  He  hath  not  dealt  with  us  after 
our  sins,  nor  rewarded  us  according  to  our  iniquities." 
"Let  the  wicked  forsake  his  wavs,  and  the  unrio-hteous 
man  his  thoughts,  and  turn  unto  the  Lord,  and  he  will 
have  mercy  upon  him ;  and  to  our  God,  and  he  will 
abundantly  pardon."  —  "If  the  wicked  will  turn  from 
all  his  sins  that  he  hath  committed,  and  keep  all  my 
statutes,  and  do  that  which  is  lawful  and  right,  he  shall 
surely  live  :  he  shall  not  die." 

But  let  it  be  remembered,  that  these  utterances  are 
no  part  of  the  Mosaic  Law ;  the  spirit  which  they 
breathe  is  not  the  spirit  of  Judaism.  They  are  glorious 
anticipations  rather  of  the  grace  that  was  to  come,  and 
such  anticipations  as  were  possible  only  to  a  prophet  of 
the  race  of  Shem ;  to  a  Hebrew  standing  where  Moses 
stood,  and  seeing,  from  the  spiritual  Sinai  to  which  the 
lawgiver  had  brought  his  people,  —  its  thunders  all 
hushed,  its  blackness  and  darkness  and  tempest  rolled 
away,  —  more  clearly  even  than  Moses  saw,  the  deep 
things  of  God.  Such  anticipations  were  possible  only 
to  the  shepherd-king  whose  musing  youth  the  Shepherd 
God  had  lodged  in  the  green  pastures,  and  led  by  the 
still  waters  of  his  grace,  and  anointed  with  the  oil  of 


340  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

gladness  above  his  fellows ;  to  the  rapt  Isaian,  whose 
eyes  in  the  midst  of  "  a  people  of  unclean  lips "  had 
"  seen  the  King,  the  Lord  of  hosts,*'  and  whose  mouth 
the  seraphim  had  opened  with  a  coal  from  the  altar ; 
to  the  brooding  exile,  to  whom,  in  the  land  of  the 
Chaldeans,  by  the  river  Chebar,  the  heavens  were 
opened. 

What  was  rapt  vision,  and  rare,  prophetic  appercep- 
tion, known  only  to  elect  and  inspired  souls,  under  the 
old  dispensation,  is  become  the  staple  and  commonplace 
of  the  new.  Christianity  is  the  first  and  only  religion 
that  teaches  forgiveness  of  sins  on  the  simple  ground  of 
repentance,  as  a  fundamental  element  of  its  doctrine. 
It  is  the  only  religion  that  makes  adequate  provision 
for  the  troubled  conscience,  and  redeems  from  bottom- 
less despair  the  soul  that  is  penetrated  with  a  poignant 
sense  of  sin.  That  overpowering  conviction  of  sin 
which  lashes  into  madness  the  souls  it  masters ;  which 
the  Greeks  impersonated  in  the  fable  of  the  Furies,  -— 
that  malady  Avas  proof  against  all  the  remedies  of  the 
ancient  religions.  It  yields  only  to  the  healing  grace 
of  the  gospel. 

It  is  true,  Clmstianity  enhances  the  consciousness  of 
sin.  "I  had  not  known  sin,"  says  Paul,  "but  by  the 
law."  Not  Moses'  law  merely,  but  every  clear  revela- 
tion of  righteousness,  develops  this  knowledge.  The 
clearest  revelation  of  righteousness  comes  by  Christ ; 
consequently  the  profoundest  consciousness  of  sin.  No 
one  who  has  not  experienced  conviction  of  sin,  whether 
in  the  way  of  remorse  for  actual  transgression,  or  a 
general  sense  of  unworthiness,  can  understand  Chris- 
tianity aright.     But  the  same  ministration  which  causes 


ATONEMENT   WITHOUT    EXPIATION.  341 

the  disease  supplies  also  the  homoeopathic  remedy.  If 
the  gospel  awakens  consciousness  of  sin,  it  is  also 
charofed  with  healinof  virtue.  The  soul  that  is  drawn 
with  reverential  faith  and  love  to  the  manifestation  of 
perfect  love  in  the  Crucified,  is  made  partaker  of  that 
love ;  it  feels  itself  relieved  of  its  crushing  weight :  as 
the  heavy-laden,  staggering  pilgrim,  in  the  beautiful 
fable  of  Bunyan,  when  he  came  at  length  to  a  place 
"where  there  stood  a  cross,  and  a  little  below,  in  the 
bottom,  a  sepulchre,  his  burden  loosed  from  off  his 
shoulders,  and  fell  from  off  his  back,  and  began  to 
tumble,  and  so  continued  to  do  till  it  came  to  the  mouth 
of  the  sepulchre,  where  it  fell  in." 

The  hio^her  the  revelation,  the  clearer  the  conscious- 
ness  of  sin;  but  the  clearer  also,  and  the  fuller,  the 
absolution. 

But  is  not  forgiveness  of  sins  a  doctrine  of  "  Natural 
Religion"  which  the  common  understanding  is  competent 
to  discover,  and  would  have  discovered  without  other 
illumination  ?  It  is  time  this  phantasm  of  a  "  Natural 
Religion  "  were  exploded.  There  is  no  natural  knowl- 
edofe  of  divine  thino-s,  as  the  word  "natural"  is  com- 
monly  understood.  We  can  judge  of  what  might  be, 
only  by  what  has  been ;  and  we  know  that  the  keenest 
and  profoundest  minds  of  antiquity  did  not  attain  to  this 
idea.  Plato,  in  whom,  if  anywhere,  the  student  of 
antiquity  might  expect  to  find  it,  knows  it  not.  The 
Hebrew  prophets  alone  attained,  before  Christ,  to  the 
vision  of  unconditional  grace  and  atonement  without 
expiation. 

But,  while  we  claim  for  the  Christian  religion  the 
peculiarity  of  a  dispensation  of  grace,  it  must  be  con- 


342  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

fessed  that  the  gospel  has  not  been  so  received  and  so 
interpreted  by  the  Christian  Church.     The  grace  that 
was  in  it  was  soon  forgotten,  and  overlaid  with  dog- 
matic additions  and  ecclesiastical  inventions.     It  would 
seem  as  if  the  Church  had  made  it  her  special  aim  to 
obscure  and  obliterate  this   characteristic  trait  of  our 
faith,  —  to  assimilate  the   religion   of  Jesus   to    other 
religions,  by  engrafting  upon  it  a  sacrificial,  expiatory 
element  entirely  foreign  to  its  spirit.     So  completely 
has  the  Church  of  Rome  misconceived  the  spirit  of  Je- 
sus in  this  particular,  that  her  authorized  version  of  the 
Scripture  substitutes  for  the  word  "  Repent,"  in   the 
New  Testament,  the  perverse  rendering,  "Do  penance." 
"From  that  time  Jesus  began  to  preach,  and  to  say. 
Do  penance ;   for  the  kingdom   of  God  is    at   hand." 
That  one  word  indicates  the  change  from  a  religion  of 
faith  and  grace  to  a  religion  of  legality  and  of  works.    . 
But  this  vital  truth  of  the  gospel  was  too  deeply  rooted 
in  the  heart  of  Christendom  to  be  quite  choked  by  the 
tares  of  theology,  or  eradicated  by  priestly  tampering. 
The  seiitiment  of  the  Church  re-acted  in  a  very  remarka- 
ble manner  on   its   doctrine.      The   grace  which  was 
banished  from  its  creed  re-appeared  in  its  mythology. 
It  incarnated  itself  in  the  Virgin  Mary  —  the  supreme 
object    of  Catholic   devotion,   more   than    Christ    him- 
self, the  divinity  adored  and  implored  in  the  homage 
and  prayers  of  the  faithful.     The  Virgin  Mary  of  the 
Roman  Church,  the  Queen  of  Heaven,  the  Mother  of 
God,  is   a  providential   embodiment   of  divine   grace. 
However  we  may  liken  her  to  the  female  divinities  of 
other  religions,  Phoenician,  Egyptian,  Hindoo,  Greek, 
with  all  of  which  undoubtedly  she  has   some  affinity, 


ATONEMENT   WITHOUT   EXPIATION.  343 

the  most  zealous  Protestant  must  confess  that  the 
Christian  goddess  represents  a  character,  expresses  an 
idea,  entirely  distinct  and  infinitely  removed  from  any 
conception  embodied  in  any  other  religion.  It  is  not 
beauty,  nor  wisdom,  nor  purity  alone,  nor  even  the 
union  of  virginity  and  maternity,  — however  peculiar  to 
Christian  mythology, — that  Mary  represents;  but  the 
infinite  grace  of  God,  stooping  down  to  human  infirm- 
ities and  sins  ;  raining  pity  from  eyes  of  love  on  the  err- 
ins:  and  abandoned,  on  the  slave  of  sense  and  the  victim 
of  passion;  the  exorable  mother  of  the  inexorable,  com- 
ing between  the  sinner  and  the  law,  softening  the 
terrors  of  absolute  rule,  directing  the  applications  of 
abstract  justice,  making  justice  but  means  to  an  end,  — 
the  means  remedial,  the  end  salvation. 

I  say,  this  embodiment  was  providential.  It  ful- 
filled an  important  office  to  the  Christianized  Pagan  in 
an  age  that  must  of  necessity  have  other  objects  of 
worship  beside  the  Supreme.  It  was  the  most  effectual, 
if  not  the  only  way,  in  which  the  idea  of  divine  grace 
could  be  presented  to  the  unreflecting  mind  of  the  time. 
I  believe  that  this  benign  form  has  often  stood  between 
the  sinner  and  despair.  Often,  in  sorrow  and  perplexity 
and  imminent  peril,  prayer  to  the  Virgin,  and  faith  in 
the  Virgin's  intercession,  has  sustained  the  sinking  soul 
when  the  thous^ht  of  the  infinite  God  was  too  awful 
and  too  remote  for  support.  The  Mother  seemed  so 
much  nearer  and  more  real  than  the  Son  !  The  devout 
Catholic  instinctively  flew  to  her  in  all  time  of  trial,  as 
the  child  flies  to  its  natural  mother  for  relief. 

Protestantism  purged  religion  of  idolatry ;  but  it 
failed,  in  its  early  stages,  to  replace  the  image  of  the 


344  EATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

Virgin  with  any  adequate  representation  of  divine 
grace  in  its  creed.  Protestantism,  in  some  of  its  com- 
munions, developed  the  ideas  of  Expiation  and  Vicari- 
ous Satisfaction  and  Propitiation  of  divine  wrath,  with 
such  bleak  emphasis,  with  such  unrelenting  rigor,  as  to 
dissipate  the  idea  of  grace  more  effectually  than  even 
Komanism  had  done ;  and  to  give  us,  instead  of  an 
evangile  or  message  of  glad  tidings,  a  bloody  cartel  of 
vengeance  and  of  doom. 

But  one  thing  Protestantism  has  done,  for  which 
Christendom  owes  it  everlasting  thanks.  It  has  re- 
stored the  written  word.  It  has  given  us  the  Scrip- 
tures, and  with  them  the  way  of  escape  from  its  own 
entanoflements.  It  uncovered  the  well  of  divine  truth 
on  which  twelve  centuries  had  piled  their  traditions ; 
and,  though  the  spring  was  troubled  at  first  by  the  pro- 
cess, and  reflected  only  distorted  images,  there  have 
not  been  wanting  —  Heaven  be  praised  !  —  persistent 
spirits  who  stayed  by  the  waters,  and  gazed  till  the 
troubling  angel  had  passed  away ;  and  then  saw  in  the 
crystal  depths  a  human  image,  and  the  sun-grace  of 
God,  and  the  pure,  unfathomable  heavens  bending  over, 
serenely  inviting,  and  ready  to  embrace. 

Grace  is  the  innermost  sense  and  soul  of  the  Chris- 
tian revelation ;  the  Alpha  and  Omega  of  the  "  New 
Covenant ; "  the  hidden  pearl  of  the  parable,  for  which, 
when  found,  the  theologian  is  willing  to  give  up  all  his 
theology.  A  false  theology  has  long  ignored  it ;  but 
it  could  not  remain  for  ever  concealed.  May  its  lustre 
become  ever  more  apparent  to  Christian  faith,  until  the 
Church  of  the  Crucifixion,  which  has  hitherto  prevailed 
in  the  Christian  world,  shall  be  replaced  by  a  Church  of 


ATONEMENT   WITHOUT   EXPIATION.  345 

the  Resurrection  !  And  as  Christendom  has  borne  in  its 
body  "  the  dying  of  the  Lord  Jesus  "  in  its  doctrine  of 
Expiation,  so  may  "the  life  also  of  Jesus  be  manifest" 
in  its  future  grateful  recognition  of  a  grace  without 
expiation  I 


VIII. 
THE  "DOUBLE  PREDESTINATION." 


VIII. 
THE  "DOUBLE  PKEDESTINATION." 


The  first  glance  at  society  discovers  a  vast  inequality 
in  the  outward  condition  of  men.  A  second  and  nearer 
view  reveals  a  less  portentous,  yet  very  considerable, 
difference  in  human  desert,  or  what  we  call  desert, — 
a  difference  in  the  moral  character  and  life.  If  the 
former  of  these  differences  exactly  corresponded  with 
the  latter ;  if  high  and  low,  rich  and  poor,  fortunate 
and  unfortunate,  happy  and  wretched,  were  identical 
with  moral  good  and  moral  evil,  —  these  contrasts  would 
not  much  trouble  us.  To  the  greater  part  of  mankind, 
they  w^ould  seem  quite  natural  and  proper  :  the  why 
and  wherefore  of  them  to  most  minds  would  present  no 
difficulty.  The  common  judgment  would  be,  that  some 
are  righteous,  having  chosen  righteousness,  and  there- 
fore deservedly  blest ;  and  that  others  are  wicked, 
having  chosen  wickedness,  and  therefore  deservedly 
wretched. 

But  if  any  should  consider  the  matter  more  curiously, 
and  inquire  more  minutely  into  the  causes  of  that  moral 
difference  which  has  wrou2:ht  this  difference  of  out- 
ward  condition,  to  such  the  common  answer,  that  the 

[349] 


350  RATIONAL    CHRISTIANITY. 

good  and  evil  have  chosen  respectively  to  be  what  they 
are,  would  not  suffice.  A  further  question  would  sug- 
gest itself :  "  Why  have  they  chosen  thus  ?  why  have 
they  not  rather  all  chosen  what  is  best,  and  will  bring 
the  greatest  satisfaction  ? "  And  if  to  this  it  were 
answered,  "  These  have  chosen  thus  because  they  were 
wise,  and  those  have  chosen  otherwise  because  they 
were  foolish,  "  a  new  question  would  immediately  arise, 
"Why  were  these  wise,  and  those  foolish?"  And  the 
answer  to  that  question  would  carry  the  inquirer  be- 
yond the  actors  themselves,  and  beyond  the  present 
condition  of  society,  back,  and  still  back,  from  circum- 
stance to  circumstance,  and  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion, —  back  to  the  first  man.  And  here  a  portion  of 
these  inquirers  would  halt.  The  first  man,  they  would 
say,  explains  every  thing.  The  first  man  had  it  all  in 
his  power,  —  the  future  history  of  the  race,  the  charac- 
ter and  condition  of  all  his  successors.  He  made  a 
mistake  ;  he  did  the  wrong  thing  ;  and  all  his  posterity 
have  contracted  a  taint  from  his  guilt,  and  inherit  from 
his  fall  an  irresistible  proclivity  to  evil,  by  which  they 
slide  to  sure  destruction,  excepting  those  whom  God 
by  his  grace  shall  see  fit  to  elect,  and  snatch  from  the 
common  doom. 

But  some  there  would  be  who  would  not  stop  here. 
They  would  ask  again,  "  What  possessed  the  first  man 
to  blunder  so  foully,  consigning  himself  and  his  offspring 
to  everlastino'  death  ?  Somethino;  must  have  ailed  him 
to  choose  as  he  did."  They  would  seek  the  reason  of 
his^  mistake  in  his  constitution,  which  was  not  made 
proof  against  such  folly ;  that  is,  they  would  seek  it  in  . 
the  author  of  that  constitution.     They  would  go  beyond 


THE  "double  predestination."  351 

the  first  man,  and  never  stop  till  they  reached  the 
Fkst  Cause,  and  would  stop  there  only  because  they 
must ;  because  the  will  of  God  is  the  adamantine  boun- 
dary -  wall  of  the  mind,  which  no  wit  can  penetrate, 
and  which  no  imagination  can  scale. 

In  thus  describing  the  natural  and  probable  course 
of  inquiry  concerning  the  differences  in  the  nature  and 
condition  of  men,  I  have  indicated  the  actual  history 
of  the  doctrine  of  "Election,"  or  rather  of  "Predestina- 
tion," which  includes  "Election"  as  one  of  its  terms, 
and  includes  "Reprobation"  as  the  other. 

It  is  true,  the  conditions  of  the  problem  are  not  pre- 
cisely such  as  I  have  supposed.  The  difference  in  the 
outward  condition  of  men  does  not  exactly  correspond 
with  the  differences  in  their  moral  nature.  Moral  good 
and  temporal  good,  moral  and  temporal  evil,  are  by  no 
means  identical  or  commensurate,  the  one  with  the 
other.  Prosperity  and  vice  are  sometimes  conjoined, 
and  righteousness  is  sometimes  wedded  to  adversity. 
But  all  this,  in  the  eye  of  theology,  is  very  superficial 
and  transient.  The  doctrine  of  Predestination  over- 
looks all  this  as  insignificant ;  it  takes  its  stand  in 
eternity,  and  sees  there  a  portentous  and  overwhelming 
difference  in  the  human  condition.  It  sees  an  eternal 
state  of  outward  blessedness  on  the  one  hand,  and  of 
outward  misery  on  the  other,  corresponding  with  and 
compensating  moral  good  and  evil. 

In  the  system  of  religion  received  by  our  fathers, 
originating  with  Augustine  in  the  fifth  century,  devel- 
oped by  Gottschalk  in  the  ninth,  revived  by  Calvin  in 
the  sixteenth,  and  consummated  by  Edwards  in  the 
eighteenth,  —  that  system  which  once  reigned  in  this 


352  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

country  with  despotic  sway,  which  overshadowed  the 
New  England  of  the  Puritans,  and  in  the  shadow  of 
which  many  now  hving  were  born  and  bred, — in  that 
system  the  doctrine  of  Predestination  maintained  a  con- 
spicuous place.  It  was  held,  that  God  had  chosen  a 
limited  portion  of  the  human  race  to  be  for  ever  blessed ; 
that  he  chose  them  before  they  were  born,  while  as  yet 
they  existed  only  in  idea ;  chose  them  from  all  eternity, 
and  without  regard  to  any  future  and  foreseen  merit 
on  their  part ;  chose  them  of  his  own  free  grace, 
undetermined  by  any  quality  in  the  object,  or  by  any 
consideration  out  of  himself;  chose  them  by  an  act  of 
irresponsible,  absolute  will.  And  this  will  was  irre- 
sistible. No  one  who  was  fore-ordained  to  eternal  life 
could  fail  of  his  destination,  or  forfeit  the  blessedness  in 
store  for  him,  through  any  slip  or  fault  of  his  own.  He 
might  sin  as  other  men  sin,  but  his  sin  would  do  him  no 
mortal  harm.  His  "  effectual  calling "  would  triumph 
over  all  the  defects  of  his  nature,  and  all  the  evil  of  his 
life,  and  carry  him  to  heaven  in  spite  of  himself  by  the 
"  final  perseverance  "  of  divine  grace. 

There  is  nothino:  revoltinoj  to  the  moral  sense  in  the 
doctrine  thus  far.  Had  it  never  been  developed  beyond 
this  point,  or  if  nothing  more  were  implied  in  it,  it 
would  have  had  no  stronger  objection  to  encounter  than 
its  want  of  foundation  in  the  universal  consciousness, 
and  its  want  of  support  from  the  Scripture.  This  is  the 
favorable  side  of  the  doctrine,  —  "Jacob  have  I  loved." 
Some  modern  theologians  have  pretended  that  it  goes 
no  farther,  and  involves  nothing  more ;  that  all  men  are 
capable  of  attaining  that  which  the  elect  are  sure  of 
attaining.     All  are  called,  if  few  are  chosen.     All  are 


THE  "double  predestination."  353 

furnished  with  the  requisite  means  and  opportunities,  — 
the  only  difference  being,  that  some  are  left  to  win  the 
prize  by  the  unaided  exercise  of  their  own  powers, 
while  others  are  goaded  to  it  by  an  irresistible  compul- 
sion, stronger  than  their  own  wills,  and  than  all  the 
powers  of  a  hostile  world.  But  this  was  not  the  doc- 
trine held  by  the  fathers.  That  doctrine  had  a  dark 
and  repulsive  side, — "Esau  have  I  hated."  The 
Church  could  not  fail,  in  the  course  of  her  inquiry,  to 
discover,  that  predestination  and  extraordinary  action  of 
divine  grace  are  superfluous,  if  every  man,  by  the 
ordinary  powers  of  his  nature,  is  capable  of  attaining 
that  for  the  sake  of  which  this  special  action  is  put  forth. 
The  doctrine,  as  consummated  in  the  formularies  of  the 
ninth  century,  was,  that  every  man  who  attains  to  ever- 
lasting life  does  so  by  a  special  act  of  grace,  electing 
him  thereto ;  and  that  no  man  attains  to  it  who  is  not 
so  elected.  It  follows,  that  the  elective  grace  is  an 
exclusive  grace.  In  the  act  of  choosing  a  part,  is 
included  the  act  of  rejecting  the  rest.  And  since  it 
is  undeniable  that  God  might  have  elected  the  whole 
race,  as  well  as  a  part,  —  no  respect  being  had  to  the 
qualities  and  claims  of  the  chosen,  — it  follows  further, 
that  Predestination  is  as  much  an  act  of  hostility  to 
the  many  who  are  excluded,  as  it  is  of  favor  to  the  few 
who  are  chosen.  Again,  the  Church  was  too  acute 
not  to  see,  that  what  God  alone  can  prevent,  and  does 
not  prevent,  that  he  ordains.  If  none  can  be  saved 
without  the  special  election  of  God,  then  every  one  who 
is  not  elected  is  condemned  by  him  to  endless  misery. 
Hence  the  horrible  doctrine  of  the  "  Double  Predestina- 
tion" (prasdestinatio  duplex),  taught  by  Gottschalk,  and 

23 


354  KATIOJs^AL   CHRISTIANITY. 

confirmed  by  the  Synod  of  Yalence  in  855,  —  the  doc- 
trine of  Calvin  and  Edwards. 

Double  Predestination  includes  Reprobation  as  well 
as  Election.  Reprobation  is  the  other  side,  the  com- 
plement of  Election ;  the  latter  is  incomplete  without 
the  former.  RejDrobation  means  that  a  large  portion 
of  the  human  race  are  foredoomed,  for  no  fault  of  their 
own,  by  the  arbitrary  will  of  God,  to  endless  misery. 
I  say,  by  no  fault  of  their  own.  The  guilt  contracted 
by  the  sin  of  the  first  man  was  assigned  as  the  reason 
and  justification  of  this  decree.  But  the  reason  is  no 
reason  at  all,  so  far  as  the  justice  of  God  is  concerned. 
A  thorough  inquiry  will  not  stop,  and  did  not  stop, 
with  the  sin  of  the  first  man.  It  demands,  and  de- 
manded, the  cause  of  that  sin,  the  reason  of  its  per- 
mission, the  justification  of  a  liability  in  which  such 
portentous  consequences  were  involved.  Besides,  Rep- 
robation is  not  the  necessary  consequence  of  hereditary 
sin  :  if  it  were,  then  none  could  be  saved.  .  If  God 
could  elect  some  to  be  saved  in  spite  of  that  sin ,  then 
he  could  elect  all  to  be  saved  in  spite  of  it.  And  if  he 
did  not,  then  Reprobation  was  purely  an  act  of  arbi- 
trary will,  undetermined  by  moral  considerations. 

After  some  vacillation  of  opinion,  St.  Augustine 
denied  all  efficacy  to  the  human  will,  and  ascribed  the 
work  of  salvation  to  God  alone,  whose  grace  and  elec- 
tion are  entirely  independent  of  any  merit  or  quality  in 
the  subject.  In  other  words,  he  maintained  an  absolute 
Predestination.  His  antagonist,  Pelagius,  starting  from 
different  premises  and  reasoning  from  a  different  expe- 
rience, maintained,  on  the  contrary,  the  power  of  all 
men  to  become  good  and  holy.     The  Church  decided  in 


THE  "double  predestinatiox."     355 

favor  of  Aus^ustine,  and  the  doctrine  of  Pelamus  was 
repudiated  as  heresy.  Augustine,  however,  did  not 
consummate  the  doctrine  of  Predestination.  His  opinion 
was  rather  a  practical  than  a  speculative  principle.  Af- 
ter the  lapse  of  three  hundred  years,  the  discussion  was 
revived  by  a  German  monk,  —  a  man  of  subtler  intellect, 
if  less  elevated  nature,  than  Augustine,  who  applied  the 
principle  of  Predestination  not  merely,  as  heretofore,  to 
the  good,  but  also  to  the  wicked.  The  one,  he  main- 
tained, follows  necessarily  from  the  other.  If  a  portion 
of  the  race  are  predestined  to  salvation,  the  rest  are  as 
certainly  predestined  to  damnation.  This  Double  Pre- 
destination was  finally  adopted  by  the  Church.  It  was 
re-affirmed  by  Calvin  after  the  Reformation,  and  car- 
ried out  to  its  last  results  by  Jonathan  Edwards,  who 
frankly  admits  that  the  doctrine  makes  God  the  author 
of  sin. 

There  is  something  sublime  in  the  uncompromising 
and  inexorable  consistenc}^  of  this  doctrine,  and  in  the 
heroic  disregard  of  consequences  with  which  those  who 
taught  it  carried  out  their  reasoning,  and  pursued  their 
principle  to  its  final  and  legitimate  result.  And  they 
seemed  to  find  a  sround  and  warrant  for  their  doctrine 
in  the  sacred  books.  "For  whom  he  did  foreknow,  he 
also  did  predestinate.  .  .  .  Moreover,  whom  he  did  pre- 
destinate, them  he  also  called."  There  is  a  kind  of  elec- 
tion affirmed  in  the  New  Testament.  Christians  are 
called  the  "elect  of  God."  They  seemed  to  be  singled 
out  from  the  rest  of  mankind,  and  made  the  recipients 
of  peculiar  and  exclusive  privileges  and  blessings.  This 
election  is  justified  by  Paul,  who  finds  a  precedent  for 
it  in  Hebrew  history,  in  the  case  of  Jacob  and  Esau. 


356  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

Before  Jacob  and  Esau  were  born,  consequently  with- 
out regard  to  the  character  of  either,  it  was  ordained 
that  the  elder  should  serve  the  younger.  "  The  children 
being  not  yet  born,  neither  having  done  any  good  or 
evil,  that  the  purpose  of  God,  according  to  election 
might  stand,  not  of  works,  but  of  him  that  willeth." 
■'As  it  is  written,  Jacob  have  I  loved,  and  Esau  have 
I  hated."  That  is,  accordino^  to  the  true  renderino:  of 
the  Hebrew  idiom,  Jacob  have  I  preferred  before  Esau, 
and  distinguished  with  peculiar  blessings. 

Here  was  an  instance  of  actual  Predestination  or 
Election  in  the  world's  history.  It  stands  forth  the 
representative  of  many  others,  —  an  instance  of  what 
has  been  in  the  world's  history,  and  what  is  still,  —  an 
example  of  preference  and  divine  favor  wholly  irrespect- 
ive of  personal  merit.  Jacob  is  no  better  than  Esau ; 
in  many  respects  he  is  worse,  —  cunning,  perfidious;  a 
man  entitled  to  no  preference  on  the  score  of  merit ;  and 
yet  he  is  preferred.  He  is  made  inheritor  of  the  pro- 
mises ;  he  is  placed  in  the  line  of  divine  communications  ; 
throu2:h  him  is  transmitted  the  Abrahamic  blessins^, 
while  his  brother  is  set  aside, — ignoble  head  of  an 
inferior  line. 

St.  Paul  adduces  this  instance,  by  way  of  precedent, 
to  illustrate  God's  method  in  the  distribution  of  civil 
blessin2:s.  It  was  an  instance  of  what  was  then  takino^ 
place  in  the  election  of  those  who  were  called  to  be 
disciples  of  Christ.  Christians  were  called  without 
regard  to  any  previous  claim,  —  Gentile  and  Jew, 
those  who  had  performed  the  works  of  tlie  law,  and 
those  who  were  without  the  law, — that  the  elective 
purpose  '^  might  stand,  not  of  man's  works,  but  of  God's 


THE  "double  predestixation."  357 

will."  —  "For  he  saith  to  Moses,  'I  will  have  mercy  on 
whom  I  will,  and  compassion  on  whom  I  will/  So, 
then,  it  is  not  of  him  that  willeth,  nor  of  him  that  run- 
neth, but  of  God,  that  showeth  mercy."  This  was  the 
order  of  Providence  then,  and  this  is  the  order  of 
Providence  now.  God's  government  is  not  a  system 
of  equality  as  it  regards  the  privileges  and  blessings 
enjoyed  by  different  orders  of  men  :  on  the  contrary, 
it  is  a  system  of  seeming  partiality,  —  so  far  as  we 
can  see,  of  arbitrary  election ;  that  is,  an  election 
entirely  irrespective  of  the  qualities  and  claims  of  the 
chosen,  and  undetermined  by  any  law  intelligible  to 
us.  All  creatures  have  by  nature  an  equal  claim  on 
the  Universal  Love ;  all  are  children  of  one  Father ; 
but  how  different  the  rank  assis^ned  to  them  in  his 
household  !  One  is  created  an  angel,  another  is  created 
a  worm.  Or,  confining  ourselves  within  the  limits  of 
the  human  family,  some  are  elected  to  the  highest  cul- 
ture and  the  noblest  works  of  which  human  nature  is 
capable ;  others  are  condemned  to  life-long  ignorance 
and  vice. 

Observe  this  election  on  the  large  historic  scale,  as 
manifested  in  the  lot  of  nations.  One  nation  is  set  in 
the  van  of  humanity,  nurtured  in  Christian  schools  and 
churches,  and  blest  with  every  advantage  of  moral 
and  scientific  culture ;  another  is  overshadowed  by 
gloomy  superstitions,  and  crushed  by  inexorable  despo- 
tism. Compare  our  Protestant  Christendom  of  to-day 
with  the  polities  of  some  rude  Polynesian  tribe,  and 
learn  how  wide  the  scope  and  how  vast  the  distinction 
embraced  in  the  scheme  of  divine  election,  as  applied  to 
nations. 


358  EATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

But  the  fact  and  Import  of  this   election   are   most 
striking  when  we  view  it  in  its  application  to  individuals. 
Suppose   two    souls,   two   individual    entities,   not   yet 
incorporated  in  human  frames,  existing  as  yet  only  in 
the  vision  and  will  of  the  parent  Mind.     Both  are  equal 
in  the  sight  of  God ;  neither  possesses  any  claim  above 
the  other,  "being  not  yet  born,"  as  the  apostle  says; 
"neither  having  done  any  good  or  evil."     What  shall 
be  the  calling  and  destination  respectively  of  these  two 
souls?     The  one  shall  be  launched  into  life  in  a  civil- 
ized land,  illumined  by  the  light  of  the  gospel,  ennobled 
by  science,  adorned  by  art,  rich  in  historic  traditions, 
rich  in  sacred  memories,  abounding  in  the  means  of  cul- 
ture, affording  scope  and  supplying  motive  to  the  nobler 
faculties  of  mind  and  heart.     It  shall  draw  its  earliest 
nurture  from  the  bosom  of  Christian  parents,  and  come 
forth  taught   and   stimulated  by  sages   and  poets   and 
heroes  and  saints,  imbued  with  all  human  learning,  in- 
stituted in  all  useful  arts.     The  other  shall  be  cast  on  a 
savage  shore,  among  savage  children  of  the  desert,  in 
some  unexplored  island  of  the  Indian  Ocean,  or  some 
African  wild,  neighbor  to  the  tiger  and  the  ape ;  where 
hopeless  night  broods  over  the  mind,  and  God's  truth  is 
quenched  in  thick  superstition  which  not  a  ray  of  the 
everlasting  light  can  pierce  ;  where  no  science  is  learned 
but   that  which   teaches   the   fingers   to  fight,   no   art 
acquired  but  that  of  fashioning  and  handling  the  bow 
and  the  spear,  no  calling  known  but  that  of  violence, 
and  no   good  pursued   but  the  gross    satisfactions    of 
appetite  and  last.     Or,  again,  the  one  shall  be  lodged  in 
a  sickly  and  deformed  frame,  and  crawl  through  life  with 
labor  and  sorrow,  and  a  crushing  sense  of  inferiority ; 


THE  "double  predestination."  359 

the  other  shall  incarnate  itself  in  strength  and  beauty, 
and,  with  full  command  of  its  powers,  rejoice  in  the 
buoyancy  of  perfect  health,  —  every  sinew  tense,   and 
every  nerve  in  tune,  —  a  body  worthy  to  be  the  temple 
of  the  Lord.     Yet,  again,  the  one  shall  be  born  into  the 
lap  of  wealth  and  social  refinement,  born  to  high  station 
and  command ;  the  other  shall  enter  humanity  by  the 
way  of  penury  and  want  and  grovelling  vice,   and  see 
no  Avay  open  but  that  of  shame  and  guilt.     These  are 
no  imaginary  differences,  but  well-known  and  familiar 
facts.     They  present  a  curious  theme  for  contemplation, 
when  we  think  what  a  different  value  life  is  likely  to 
have  for  individuals  so  divided  in  the  circumstances  of 
their  lot.     But  they  assume  a  more  serious  aspect,  — 
these  inequalities,  if  we  attempt  to  trace  their  conse- 
quences  in  the   moral  destiny   of  those  who   are  thus 
distinguished.     Consider  the  influence  of  circumstance 
on  character.      Suppose   two   youths  just  entering  the 
world, — the  one  a  child  of  intelligent  Christian  parents, 
well  circumstanced,  able  and  willing  to  give  their  off- 
spring such  an  education  as  shall  best  secure  his  moral 
well-being ;  the  other  sprung  from  the  bosom  of  want 
and  vice  in  some  squalid  den  of  a  populous  city,  brought 
up  in  the  daily  contemplation  of  evil  examples,  — every 
known  influence  that    acts    upon    him    unfavorable    to 
moral  growth.     What  are  likely  to  be  the  lives  of  these 
two  subjects  ?     Let  any  one  attempt  from  these  elements 
to  calculate  their  future  history ;  what  will  he  predict  ? 
For  the  one,  a  useful  and  honorable  career,  life-long 
progress  in  well-doing ;  for  the  other,  a  life  of  infamy 
and  shame,  constant  declension  into  oulf  after  irulf  of 
depravity  and  ruin.     But  this  is  not  all ;  it  is  not  the 


3 GO  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

worst :  it  might  seem  to  be  the  least  and  most  favorable 
part  of  the  calculation.  We  are  taught  that  the  con- 
sequences of  our  actions  extend  beyond  this  mortal 
world  ;  that  this  life  delivers  us  over  to  another,  like  this 
in  its  moral  conditions,  subject  to  the  same  law,  taking 
up  and  carrying  on  the  same  process  of  development ; 
that  the  next  world  finds  us  as  this  world  leaves  us  : 
he  that  leaves  this  with  pure  habits,  unspotted  by  sin, 
enters  a  circle  of  pure  spirits,  and  engages  himself  to 
eternal  purity  hereafter ;  he  that  leaves  it  in  sin ,  in  sin 
begins  his  future  course ;  and  every  step  which  he  takes 
in  that  course,  binds  him  to  inextricable  entanglements 
of  guilt  and  woe,  and  renders  his  recovery  more  diffi- 
cult and  doubtful.  So  that,  for  aught  that  we  can  see, 
the  eternal  destiny  of  a  human  soul  may  be  determined 
by  the  accident  of  his  earthly  condition.  According  to 
the  circumstances  of  his  birth,  he  miglit  seem  to  be 
fore-ordained  to  eternal  life,  or  foredoomed  to  endless 
woe.  And  is  not  this  the  very  election  and  predestina- 
tion which  the  fathers  taught ;  put  in  a  different  shape, 
deduced  by  a  different  process  from  different  premises, 
but  the  same  in  substance  and  effect  ?  So  it  would 
seem ;  and  it  may  be  that  some  such  contemplation  of 
the  facts  of  life,  some  deep  impression  of  the  huge 
inequalities  of  the  human  condition,  lay  at  the  foundation 
of  the  old  doctrine,  or  was  intimately  connected  with  it. 
But  this  view  of  life,  so  far  as  the  happiness  and  moral 
destiny  of  the  individual  are  concerned,  is  a  mere  illu- 
sion, a  fallacy,  which  confounds  the  certainty  of  the 
facts  observed  with  the  certainty  of  the  inferences  from 
them.  The  facts  are  certain  ;  the  inferences  are  merely 
plausible,  and  will  not  bear  examination.     The  election 


THE  "double  predestination."  361 

affirmed  in  the  New  Testament  is  election  only  as  to 
means  and  opportunities  and  external  condition.  And 
this  is  not  a  theory,  but  a  fact ;  an  election  actually 
observed ;  a  matter  of  history.  But  this  is  all.  The 
distinction  2:oes  no  further  than  outward  advantao-es 
and  blessings.  ,  No  other  election  is  taught  in  the  Scrip- 
ture, no  other  is  inferrible  from  the  facts  of  life.  A 
closer  examination  will  show  that  this  election  is  quite 
superficial ;  it  does  not  touch  the  interior  life.  It  does 
not  affect,  or  does  not  necessarily  affect,  in  the  way 
supposed,  the  happiness  or  moral  destiny  of  the  chosen 
or  rejected.  Happiness  and  character  may  bear  an 
inverse  ratio  to  circumstance.  The  most  favorable,  as 
we  reckon,  may  prove  the  least  so. 

1.  As  it  regards  happiness,  who  that  has  studied 
human  nature  and  human  life  does  not  know  that  hap- 
piness is  a  thing  which  defies  calculation  ?  It  is  found 
in  greatest  abundance  there  where  there  seemed  least 
reason  to  expect  it.  It  has  nothing  to  do  with  circum- 
stances. It  would  even  seem  as  if  a  kind  God,  by  way 
of  compensation,  had  bestowed  most  of  It  there  where 
circumstances  are  most  forbidding ;  so  that  the  poorer 
and  the  more  degraded  a  man's  condition,  provided  the 
poverty  and  degradation  are  native,  and  not  a  reverse 
of  fortune,  the  happier  he  is ;  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  higher  we  ascend  in  the  scale  of  life,  the  more 
thoughtful,  serious,  ay,  the  more  sad,  life  becomes. 
Indeed,  I  figure  to  myself  the  blessedness  ascribed  to 
higher  natures,  the  blessedness  of  heaven,  to  be  very 
different  from  what  we  call  happiness, —  as  far  from  glee 
as  from  mourning.  A  divine  compensation  is  for  ever 
equalizing  the  human  condition,  reconciling  its  opposite 


362  RATIONAL   CHRISTIi\NITY. 

extremes,  and  awarding  to  each  individual,  in  his  inte- 
riors, so  much  and  no  more  of  secret  satisfaction  as  his 
own  consciousness  enables  and  entitles  him  to  receive, 
without  respect  to  cu'cumstance  or  person.  When  the 
tide  rushes  inland,  every  channel  is  flooded ;  the  river 
which  bears  a  thousand  tons  on  its  bosom  is  no  fuller 
than  the  creek  on  which  the  schoolboy  launches  his 
mimic  craft.  When  the  dew  of  heaven  distils,  all 
plants  partake  of  the  blessing,  — the  vilest  weed  that  lifts 
its  despised  head  above  the  soil,  as  well  as  the  queenly 
rose  and  the  trellised  vine.  And  the  mercy  of  God  is 
that  tide  and  that  dew  which  floods  and  blesses  all, 
both  small  and  great,  both  splendid  and  vile,  with  its 
equal  and  impartial  largess.  Nothing  is  more  delusive 
than  to  judge  of  another's  consciousness  by  his  visible 
condition.  Do  you  wonder  how  the  beggar,  the  pris- 
oner, the  slave,  the  maimed  and  diseased,  can  endure 
the  burden  of  being ;  or  whence,  in  their  hard  estate, 
they  derive  so  much  of  satisfaction  as  the  heart  requires 
to  maintain  its  life  ? —  ask  where  the  berry  in  the  arid 
rock-cleft,  with  its  minimum  of  earth  and  moisture, 
finds  the  sweetness  that  circulates  in  its  veins?  —  ask 
whence  the  flower  that  springs  from  corruption  gets  its 
spotless  raiment  and  its  balmy  breath?  —  ask  whence 
the  pearl-fish,  in  the  unsunned  darkness  of  the  deep, 
derives  the  rainbow  hues  that  paint  the  walls  of  its  cell? 
The  heart  is  a  chemist,  more  subtile  than  berry  or 
flower  or  pearl.  In  the  hardest  and  most  arid  condi- 
tions it  will  find  some  nurture.  If  the  world  of  its 
surrounding  yields  nothing,  it  will  push  its  roots 
through  into  another,  and  draw  in  heaven  by  the  migh- 
ty attraction  of  a  mighty  need. 


THE  "double  predestination."  363 

Happiness  is  not  confined  to  the  favored  of  fortune. 
Jacob  may  be  preferred  before  Esau  ;  but  Jacob  is  not 
therefore  the  happier  man.  The  actual,  historical  Ja- 
cob of  the  Old  Testament,  we  know,  was  not.  Turn  to 
the  record,  and  see.  He  triumphed  over  his  brother ; 
but  his  triumph  had  a  root  of  bitterness  which  avenged 
its  wronsf.  He  stole  a  blesslno-  •  but  a  curse  went  with 
it.  He  was  doomed  to  be  most  sorely  afflicted  there 
where  chiefly  he  had  garnered  his  heart  and  hope  ;  and 
he  spoke  the  bitterness  of  his  soul  Vv^hen  he  said,  "Few 
and  evil  have  been  the  years  of  my  pilgrimage."  On 
the  other  hand,  Esau  may  be  postponed  and  cast  out, 
but  not  therefore  for  ever  miserable.  What  did  the 
Esau  of  history  when  he  found  himself  defrauded  of  his 
rights  ?  "  He  cried  with  an  exceeding  bitter  cry,  and 
said  unto  his  father,  ^  Bless  me  also,  even  me,  O  my 
father!'  And  he  said,  ^  Thy  brother  came  with  sub- 
tlety, and  hath  taken  away  thy  blessing.'  And  he  said, 
*  Hast  thou  not  reserved  a  blessing  for  me  ?  Hast  thou 
but  one  blessing,  my  father?  Bless  me  also,  even  me.'" 
This  is  the  cry  which  still  goes  up  from  the  poor,  the 
injured,  the  oppressed,  to  the  mercy-seat.  "Bless  me 
also,  even  me  also,  O  my  Father  !  Though  poor  and 
vile,  let  not  me  be  excluded  from  a  share  in  the  general 
joy."  And  the  prayer  is  heard.  The  Father  has 
other  blessinofs  besides  outward  distinctions  and  the 
prizes  of  the  world.  He  opens  a  compensating  fountain 
of  joy  in  the  heart  of  the  desolate,  over  which  the  world 
has  no  power,  and  entertains  it  with  the  hope  of  deliv- 
erance :  "  And  it  shall  come  to  pass  when  thou  shalt 
have  the  dominion,  that  thou  shalt  break  thy  brother's 
yoke  from  off  thy  neck."  So  much  for  the  influence  of 
circumstance  on  happiness. 


364  RATIONAL    CHRISTIANITY. 

2.  As  it  resrards  the  character  and  moral  destiny  of 
the  individual,  these  two  are  less  affected  by  the  in- 
equalities of  fortune  —  that  is,  they  are  less  affected  by 
adverse  circumstances  —  than  we  are   apt  to   suppose. 
There  is  a  superficial  morality  induced  by  prosperous 
fortunes,  —  a  correctness   of  deportment;   an   external 
decorum  which  cannot  be  too  highly  prized  in  its  social 
bearings,  but  which  has  no  relation,  or  an  inverse  one, 
to  the  inner  man,  —  which  is  not  the  fruit  of  the  heart, 
but  its  covering.     So  there  is   a  superficial  depravity 
induced  by  adverse  circumstances,  a  contempt  of  law 
and  social  conventions,  an  external  flagitiousness,  which 
looks  bad,  and  which  society  must  punish  in  self-defence, 
but  which  does  not  necessarily  involve  any  great  de- 
pravity of  heart.     Many  a  one  who  leads  a  profligate 
life,  from  having  been  "to  the  manner  born,"  may  be 
less  infected  with  sin  in  the  core  of  his  heart,  than  a 
hundred   others   of  decent  reputation   all   around  him. 
Jesus,  who  knew  what  was  in  man,  who  could  see  mur- 
der and  adultery  in  the  heart,  beneath  a  canonical  robe, 
and  who  could  see  a  soul  of  goodness  in  the  fallen  pros- 
titute, told  the  wealthy  and  respectable  Pharisees  of  his 
day,  "Behold,  the  publicans  and  the  harlots  go  into  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  before  you."     The  moral  worth  and 
the  moral  destiny  of  men  are  not  determined  by  the 
means   of  moral   culture,  allotted  or  withheld,  or  the 
manners  corresponding  thereto ;    but  by  something  in 
the  heart,  which  only  God  can  see ;  by  a  certain  propor- 
tion, which  only  God  can  estimate,  between  the  means 
and  the  life. 

But  suppose  a  deeper  corruption  of  the  moral  nature, 
instead  of  this  superficial  depravity.     Suppose  the  vie- 


THE  ''double  phedestination."  365 

r 

tim  of  adverse  fortune  to  have  sinned,  not  only  against 
social  conventions,  but  against  the  witness  in  the  heart, 
and  to  have  perished  in  the  midst  of  his  sins.  AVhat 
right  have  we  to  limit  the  redeeming  power  of  God  to 
the  present  life,  or  to  think  that,  because  the  requisite 
means  of  reformation  have  not  been  afforded  in  this 
world,  they  will  not  be  afforded  hereafter?  For  that 
very  reason,  that  this  life  has  not  furnished  them, 
there  must  be  some  state  that  will.  There  must  be 
some  provision  in  the  immeasurable  future,  some  crisis 
there  must  be  in  the  history  of  that  soul,  which  shall" 
reach  its  necessity,  and  place  before  it  the  same  oppor- 
tunties  of  moral  culture  which  Heaven  has  vouchsafed 
to  the  most  favored  in  this  world.  So,  too,  I  can  see 
no  reason  why  the  character  which  has  never  been  sorely 
tempted  in  this  world  may  not  be  so  tempted  in  some 
future  state  :  on  the  contrary,  I  see  every  reason  to 
suppose  that  it  will.  That  virtue  is  of  little  worth,  — 
it  can  never  be  a  heaven  and  a  fountain  of  life  to  the 
soul,  —  which  has  not  been  tried  to  the  uttermost  point 
of  endurance.  Somewhere  in  the  course  of  its  history, 
every  soul  must  enjoy  the  means  of  grace  ;  and,  some- 
where in  the  course  of  its  history,  every  soul  must  be 
tried  with  fire. 

An  equal  Love  has  ordained  the  inequalities  of  life. 
Esau  is  as  dear  to  God  as  Jacob.  He  loves  the  wild 
Ishmaelite  as  well  as  the  polished  Israel  of  the  old  cove- 
nant or  the  new,  the  vagabond  and  the  outlaw  as  well 
as  the  saint.  Meanwhile,  these  inequalities  are  lessons 
to  us  of  courage,  and  patience,  and  gratitude,  and 
trust.  They  teach  reliance  on  the  Wisdom  that  arranges 
the  conditions  of  life,  allotting  to  each  the  portion  most 


366  KATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

needful  for  the  discipline  of  each,  whether  prosperous 
or  adverse ;  they  admonish  us  to  make  the  most  of  our 
position  by  brave  endeavors  to  meet  its  requirements, 
by  patient  endurance  of  its  evil,  and  by  free  communi- 
cation of  its  good. 


IX. 

THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEA  OF  IMMORTALITY. 


EX. 

THE  CHRISTIAIT  IDEA  OF  IMMORTALITY. 


"  Dust  and  clav, 

Man's  ancient  wear, 
Here  you  must  stay, 
But  I  elsewhere !  "  —  Vaughan. 


It  is  commonly  supposed,  that  the  doctrine  of  a  future 
life  is  one  of  the  specialties  of  the  Christian  revelation. 
Gibbon  ascribes  to  it,  among  other  causes,  the  early  con- 
quests of  the  gospel.  But  had  the  historian  been  chal- 
lenged to  produce  from  the  gospel  record  the  statement 
of  this  doctrine,  in  clear  and  explicit  terms,  as  a  uni- 
versal spiritual  truth,  embracing  the  whole  family  of 
man  in  its  import  and  application,  he  would  have  been 
at  a  loss  to  recall  a  proposition  answering  to  his  own 
impression  of  the  place  which  that  doctrine  occupies  in 
the  Christian  scheme.  Had  he  turned  to  the  New  Tes- 
tament to  refresh  his  knowledo-e  of  its  teachino^s  on  this 
subject,  he  would  have  found  the  resurrection  of  Christ 
asserted  by  all  the  four  Gospels,  pervading  the  Acts  of 
the  Apostles  with  its  glad  report,  and  enlivening  the 
Epistles  with  its  heavenly  promise.     But  a  critical  ex- 

24  [369] 


370  RATIONAL   CHEISTIANITY. 

animation  would  have  shown  him,  that  the  promise  was 
bounded  in  its  application  by  the  household  of  faith, 
and  had  no  validity  in  the  apprehension  of  the  writers 
of  the  New  Testament  beyond  those  bounds  ;  that  when 
Jesus  says,  "Because  I  live,  ye  shall  live  also,"  he  is 
thinking  only  of  his  own ;  and  that  Paul  had  only  be- 
lievers in  view  when  he  wrote,  "As  in  Adam  all  die,  so 
in  Christ  shall  all  be  made  alive."  He  would  find  the 
immortality  of  the  soul,  as  a  universal  psychological 
fact,  if  seemingly  intimated,  nowhere  explicitly  declared. 
I  recall,  at  this  moment,  but  two  passages  in  which  that 
doctrine  is  even  intimated.  One  is  that  saying  of  Jesus, 
in  which  he  deduces  the  fact  of  a  future  life  from  the 
phrase,  "The  God  of  Abraham,  of  Isaac,  and  of  Jacob." 
"God  is  not  a  God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living;  for 
all  live  unto  him."  A  most  noteworthy  saying  !  "All 
live  unto  him."  The  world  of  past  generations  is  not  a 
charnel,  or  world  of  dust,  but  a  Avorld  of  life  and 
thought,  of  energy  and  love.  The  Spirit  of  God  strikes 
throujyh  it  and  enfolds  it  no  less  than  our  human  world 
of  to-day.  The  other  instance  which  occurs  to  me  is  a 
passage  in  the  well-known  15th  chapter  of  1st  Corin- 
thians, "If  there  be  no  resurrection  of  the  dead,  then  is 
Christ  not  risen ;  "  words  which  represent  the  truth  of 
the  resurrection  of  Christ  as  depending  on  the  general 
fact  of  a  resurrection,  —  which  make  it  a  particular  in- 
stance under  a  general  law. 

Elsewhere  in  the  New  Testament,  so  far  as  I  remem- 
ber, the  future  life  is  regarded,  not  as  a  natural  event, 

—  a  consequence  resulting  from  the  nature  of  the  soul, 

—  but  as  something  achieved  by  faith,  or  communicated 
by  God  through  Christ. 


THE   CHRISTIAN  IDEA  OF  IMMORTALITY.  371 

Thus  envisasred,  the  doctrine  of  a  life  to  come  un- 
questionably  occupied  a  large  place,  and  constituted  an 
active  ingredient,  in  the  consciousness  of  the  early 
Church.  You  can  hardly  open  the  New  Testament 
without  liorhtins:  on  some  allusion  to  it,  or  some  hint  of 
the  speedy  coming  of  the  Son  of  Man,  whose  advent 
was  to  raise  his  departed  followers  from  the  dead. 
The  Church  of  that  age,  still  glowing  with  the  recent 
Sun  which  rose  on  the  first  great  Easter  morning  with 
a  right  ascension,  and,  it  may  be,  still  ascends,  appears 
to  have  lost  the  consciousness  of  death.  For  Christians 
it  did  not  exist.  They  might  "  fall  asleep  in  Christ,"  as 
Paul  termed  it,  but  only  to  "be  caught  up  with  him  in 
the  clouds."  Their  sun  of  life  might  decline,  but  only 
as  the  sun  of  the  arctic  midsummer  skirts  an  horizon 
where  evening  and  morning  club  their  splendors  to  fur- 
nish an  unbroken  day.  In  their  horizon  there  was  no 
dissolution  of  the  continuity  of  life.  Day  blossomed 
into  day,  mortal  was  swallowed  up  in  immortality. 
Friends  who  had  seemed  to  depart,  putting  off  this  cor- 
ruptible, came  beaming  back,  and  swelled  the  cloud  of 
immortal  witnesses  that  filled  the  Christian's  heaven. 
Believers  felt  that  they  had  come  "  to  an  innumerable 
company  of  angels  ;  "  that  there  was  but  one  "  family  in 
earth  and  heaven ;  "  and  one  of  them  was  bold  enough 
to  say,  that  Christ  had  "  abolished  death." 

These  heats  could  not  last ;  the  vision  faded ;  the 
senses  resumed  their  sway,  doubt  returned,  and  death 
returned  ;  and,  even  within  the  covers  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, we  hear  the  complaint,  "Where  is  the  promise 
of  his  coming?  for,  since  the  fathers  fell  asleep,  all 
things  continue  as  they  were  from  the  beginning  of  ere- 


372  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

ation."  We  cannot,  in  our  age,  appropriate  with  the 
fervor  of  young  Christendom  the  brave  saying,  that 
Christ  has  "  abolished  death ;  "  but  this  we  may  say, 
that  the  modern  Christian  world  is  possessed  with  a  bet- 
ter view  of  the  future  of  the  soul,  and  a  better  hope, 
than  the  ancient.  The  ancients  believed  in  a  life  to 
come ;  but  it  was  not  the  hereafter  contemplated  by  the 
Christian.  The  difference  between  the  two  is  fitly  ex- 
pressed by  the  word  "  resurrection  ;  "  understanding  by 
that  term,  not  the  resuscitation  of  the  mortal  body,  but 
the  resurrection  of  the  soul  from  Hades.  The  state  of 
the  departed,  as  conceived  by  the  ancients,  —  except  for 
the  few  who  were  raised  to  the  fellowship  of  the  gods, 
—  was  no  improvement  on  this  present  life.  It  was 
human  life  relieved,  indeed,  in  the  case  of  the  good,  from 
mortal  cares  and  pains ;  but  still  occupied,  in  a  dim  and 
dreamy  way,  with  earthly  pleasures  and  pursuits.  Its 
locality  was  not  like  the  Christian's  heaven,  the  dwell- 
ing-place of  divinity ;  it  was  not  above,  but  below,  in 
the  bowels  of  the  earth,  or  in  distant  isles  of  the  sea, 
from  which  there  was  no  return.  With  all  its  delights, 
which  were  mostly  sensual,  it  was  still  a  prison  ;  at  best, 
a  peaceful  asylum  whose  inmates  lived  in  the  past,  and 
dreamed  over  again  the  scenes  of  their  mortality,  with 
no  development  and  no  progress,  —  an  after -shine 
of  the  sun  that  was  set,  or  pensive  moonlight,  not  a 
new  day.  The  Christian  hereafter  is  Hesurrection ; 
that  is,  spiritual  new-birth,  life  more  abundant,  intenser 
action,  endless  progress, — the  mortal  life  quickened 
into  life  eternal. 

I  am  speaking  of  the  Christian  ideal  of  the  future  des- 
tiny.    A  very  different  thing  is  the  Church  doctrine  of 


THE   CHRISTIAN   IDEA   OF   IMMORTALITY.  373 

the  life  to  come.  The  doctrine  of  the  Church,  in  most 
of  its  communions,  is  that  of  a  bodily  resurrection,  — a 
simultaneous  resurrection  of  all  the  dead  at  the  end  of 
the  world,  accompanied  by  a  general  judgment,  which 
shall  fix  the  condition  of  each  soul  for  all  coming  time. 
The  state  of  the  departed  previous  to  that  event  is  a 
question  on  which  different  communions  hold  very  dif- 
ferent opinions.  The  Church  of  Kome  affirms  the  ex- 
istence of  an  intermediate  spiritual  world,  in  which  all 
but  the  saints  are  confined  until  the  general  resurrection. 
The  doctrine  of  Protestant  sects  in  relation  to  this  point 
—  of  those,  I  mean,  which  hold  the  resurrection  of  the 
body,  and  do  not  admit  the  intermediate  world  —  is 
painfully  confused  and  wavering.  The  more  consistent 
among  them  suppose  that  the  soul  exists  in  an  uncon- 
scious state ;  that  it  sleeps  vnth.  the  body  until  with  the 
body  it  is  raised  at  the  last  day.  This  is  the  view  em- 
bodied in  the  popular  hymn,  — 

"  Unveil  thy  bosom,  faithful  tomb ! 
Take  this  new  treasm-e  to  thy  trust." 

Others  conceive  that  the  disembodied  spirit  enters  at 
once  on  a  state  of  happiness  or  misery,  according  to  its 
character  and  life  in  the  flesh,  —  a  view  which  nullifies 
the  point  and  significance  of  the  doctrine  of  a  bodily 
resurrection  and  the  general  judgment,  by  making  both 
seem  ridiculously  superfluous.  For,  if  the  soul  can  ex- 
ist for  ages,  and  fulfil  the  conditions  of  a  moral  agent 
without  a  body,  why  should  the  perished  body  be  re- 
vived and  re-annexed?  And,  if  it  has  already  reaped 
the  reward  of  Its  deeds,  of  what  use  the  verdict  after 
the  award? 


374  RATIONAL   CHRISTLINITY. 

This  diversity  and  confusion  in  the  doctrine  of  the 
Church  is  due,  in  part,  to  the  conflict  of  views  repre- 
sented in  the  New  Testament  itself,  and  the  vain  attempt 
to  combine  in  one  theory  the  civil  and  personal  elements 
in  these  representations,  —  the  passages  relating  to  the 
great  historical  crisis  in  human  society,  and  passages 
relating  to  individual  destiny.  It  is  impossible,  I  be- 
lieve, to  deduce  from  the  Scriptures  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment a  doctrine  of  the  life  to  come,  which  shall  fit  all 
the  texts  and  satisfy  all  the  requirements  of  the  subject ; 
which  shall  harmonize  the  Apocalyptic  vision  of  the 
"new  earth"  and  the  New  Jerusalem  upon  it,  with 
Paul's  conception  of  being  raised  from  the  dead  and 
caught  up  into  the  clouds  to  dwell  with  the  Lord  in  the 
air ;  which  shall  harmonize  any  doctrine  of  final  resur- 
rection with  the  words  of  Jesus  to  the  thief  on  the  cross, 
"  This  day  shalt  thou  be  with  me  in  Paradise." 

Whilst  the  doctrine  of  the  Orthodox  Church,  mis- 
taking the  import  of  the  resurrection,  and  substituting 
a  bodily  rising  for  a  spiritual  one,  perverts  and  degrades 
the  Christian  idea,  the  popular  belief  in  those  com- 
munions which  reject  the  dogmatic  impositions  of  Or- 
thodoxy is  false  to  the  moral  aspects  of  that  idea,  in 
supposing  that  immortality  is  the  natural  heritage  of 
man,  —  that  man  is  born  to  it  as  the  sparks  fly  up- 
ward ;  that  life  eternal  is  the  sure  destination  of  every 
soul ;  that  for  every  soul  the  attainment  of  the  highest 
and  best  is  only  a  question  of  time ;  in  other  words, 
that  in  every  human  animal,  not  only  the  possibility  but 
the  fact  of  a  spiritual  man  is  enfolded.  This  represen- 
tation wears,  to  the  superficial  thought,  an  aspect  of 
plausibility  which  vanishes  on  closer  inspection.     AYhat 


THE   CHRISTIAN  IDEA  OF  IMMORTALITr.  375 

is  gained  in  diffusion  is  lost  in  depth.  What  is  gained 
in  popularity  is  lost  in  aspiration.  On  its  Godward 
side,  the  Universalist  doctrine  embodies  a  precious  and 
momentous  truth ;  to  wit,  the  impartiality  and  limitless 
scope  of  divine  love.  On  its  human  side,  it  errs  in  not 
recognizing  the  proprieties  and  fatalities  of  the  individ- 
ual soul. 

The  Christian  idea  of  immortality  is  essentially  a 
moral  idea.  Only  the  moral  and  spiritual  in  man  is 
supposed  by  it  to  be  capable  of  resurrection ;  whatso- 
ever is  not  concluded  in  that  category  is  mortal.  So  I 
interpret  that  saying  of  Paul,  "As  In  Adam  all  die,  so 
in  Christ  shall  all  be  made  alive." 

Adam  and  Christ  represent  respectively  different  sides 
of  human  nature,  —  different  phases  or  principles  in 
man, — the  natural  (or  animal),  which  is  mortal;  the 
spiritual,  which  is  immortal.  We  cannot  say,  that  the 
spiritual  in  man,  as  source  and  ground  of  everlasting 
life,  originated,  historically  speaking,  with  Christ ;  that 
before  the  Christian  era  there  was  no  spiritual,  eternal 
life.  By  Christ  we  must  here  understand,  not  the  his- 
torical, but  the  eternal  Christ,  the  ideal  man,  the  divine 
man.  What  is  put  chronologically,  we  must  under- 
stand spiritually.  "In  Christ  shall  all  be  made  alive." 
In  Christ  all  are  made  alive.  In  and  through  the 
spirit  which  Christ  represents,  man  is  made  partaker  of 
eternal  life  ;  all  men  —  whether  nominally  Christians, 
or  whatsoever  name  they  bear ;  whether  contemporary 
with  Jesus,  or  ages  after  or  ages  before  —  who  partake 
in  that  spirit,  in  the  degree  in  which  they  partake  of  it. 

Immortality  is  a  thing  of  degrees.     All    souls    are 
immortal  in  some  sense ;  none  are  utterly  annihilated  at 


876  RATIONAL   CHRISTIAI^ITY. 

death.  Even  animal  souls  are  not  annihilated,  but  sur- 
vive, with  unknown  conditions,  the  dissolution  of  the 
bodily  frame.  I  assume  the  existence  of  the  entity- 
called  "soul,"  and  that  what  we  so  name  is  not,  as  some 
have  pretended,  the  result  of  organism,  but  rather  the 
foundation  and  cause  of  organism,  —  the  central  force 
of  the  system  it  inhabits.  The  greater  this  central 
force,  the  more  perfect  the  organization,  the  more  im- 
mortal the  soul,  though,  perhaps,  the  more  mortal 
the  body.  In  animals  of  a  low  type,  the  weakness  of 
the  central  principle  is  compensated  by  increased  vitality 
of  the  members.  Instead  of  a  single  regent  soul,  these 
forms  are  pervaded  by  a  general  diffusive  life,  or  multi- 
plicity of  inferior,  unconscious  souls,  distributed  equally 
through  the  whole  economy.  The  unconscious  vitality 
is  great,  even  to  the  reproduction  of  perished  members ; 
but  the  individual,  voluntary  energy  is  small.  The  snail 
and  the  earthworm,  it  is  probable,  do  not  define  their 
own  individuality  by  an  act  of  consciousness  embracing 
the  entire  organism,  and  distinguishing  it  from  other 
bodies.  Immortality  cannot  be  predicated  of  such  na- 
tures in  any  other  sense  than  the  indestructibleness  of 
the  atoms  which  compose  them. 

As  we  rise  in  the  scale  of  being,  life  becomes  more 
central  and  individual ;  one  monarch  soul  possesses  and 
dominates  the  entire  frame,  subjecting  and  subordinat- 
ino^  all  its  oro^ans,  and  enduinoj  all  its  members  with 
its  own  vitality.  That  soul,  we  may  suppose,  is  im- 
mortal in  a  higher  sense  than  that  of  essential  inde- 
structibleness. Not  only  is  it  indestructible  in  its 
essence,  but  it  enters  after  death,  as  soul,  as  central 
vital  principal,  into  new  forms  of  animal  life. 


THE    CHRISTIAN   IDEA   OF   IMMORTALITY.  377 

The  immortality  which  we  ascribe  to  the  higher  ani- 
mals, we  cannot  of  course  deny  to  the  natural  or  animal 
man.  But  neither  can  we  attribute  much  more  to  the 
animal  man  in  this  reo'ard  than  we  concede  to  other 
animals.  His  intellectual  superiority,  the  faculty  of 
speech,  the  powers  by  which  he  acquires  and  applies 
scientific  knowledge,  his  philosophic  insight,  his  capacity 
for  abstract  truth,  his  converse  with  ideas,  creative 
genius,  poetry  and  art,  — all  the  mental  traits  and  en- 
dowments which  distinguish  a  Shakspeare  or  a  Raphael 
prove  nothing  on  this  head.  These  have  no  immor- 
tality other  than  that  of  the  works  they  produce,  and 
confer  none  other  on  the  author  of  those  works  than  the 
deathless  name  which  they  hand  down.  Splendid  as 
these  endowments  are,  they  contain  no  germ  of  ever- 
lasting life,  no  intimation  of  their  reproduction  in  a 
future  world.  There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the 
Shakspeares  and  Raphaels  of  this  life  will  be  Shaks- 
peares  and  Raphaels  in  the  life  to  come.  The  qualities 
of  genius  are  rightly  termed  "  gifts  ;  "  they  are  not  the 
soul's  own,  not  spiritual  property,  not  part  and  parcel 
of  the  inmost  nature  ;  but  extrinsic,  incidental,  like  per- 
sonal beauty,  muscular  strength,  an  ear  for  music,  or  a 
sweet  voice ;  they  are  not  of  the  nature  of  substance, 
but  of  accident ;  they  are  detachable ;  they  pertain  to 
the  tabernacle  that  is  dissolved,  to  the  natural  and  cor- 
ruptible which  is  put  off  in  death,  not  to  the  spiritual 
which  is  raised. 

Only  through  his  moral  and  spiritual  nature  can  man 
become  partaker  of  an  immortality  essentially  different 
from  that  of  the  brute, — the  immortality  of  which 
Christ  is  the  prototype,  "  the  first-fruits."  Only  through 


378  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

the  spirit  does  he  lay  hold  of  everlasting  life.  Only  the 
highest  can  inherit  the  highest.  The  Holy  Spirit  Is  the 
summit  of  all  being,  the  top  of  all  Imagining ;  the 
source  and  mark,  the  beo:innin2:  and  the  end  of  life  eter- 
nal.  Whatever  holds  of  that,  whatever  co-operates  or 
sympathizes  with  it,  whatever  ranges  in  the  same  line 
with  it.  Is  immortality  of  that  supreme  type  of  which  the 
apostle  says,  that  "  in  Christ  all  shall  be  made  alive," 
and  which  justifies  the  contrast,  amounting  to  antagon- 
ism, which  the  apostle  sets  between  the  destination  of 
man  in  Adam,  and  the  destination  of  man  in  Christ. 
Even  in  Adam  all  is  not  mortal.  The  soul  of  man, 
independently  of  those  spiritual  experiences  and  acqui- 
sitions which  alone  insure,  which  alone  mediate  eternal 
life  in  the  gospel  sense,  possesses  a  kind  of  immortali- 
ty. That  mysterious,  indivisible  entity,  that  insoluble 
something  which  we  call  "  soul,"  must  survive  in  some 
sort  the  dissolutions  of  death  ;  albeit,  in  some  cases  of 
extreme  depravation  or  limitation.  It  may  not  be  able  to 
recover  itself  from  the  mortal  shock,  and  to  take  up 
again  the  conscious  life  which  It  had  in  the  flesh  ;  it  may 
lack  sufficient  force  to  collect  together  a  new  system  of 
particles,  and  to  organize  a  new  body,  of  which  it  shall 
reign  the  central,  life-giving  power.  It  may  only  sur- 
vive as  one  of  the  constituents  of  such  a  sj^stem,  with 
no  Independent,  conscious  individuality;  —  subordinate, 
not  chief,  in  the  new  economy  to  which  it  belongs.  In 
most  cases,  however,  one  would  fain  believe  that  the 
soul  is  raised  as  soul,  — as  regent,  conscious  principle 
again.  In  the  case  of  the  strong  men  of  history,  the 
men  of  might,  who  have  stamped  their  image  on  their 
time  and  filled  the  world  with  their  deeds,  it  is  impossi- 


THE    CHRISTIAN   IDEA   OF   I3IMORTALITY.  379 

ble  not  to  believe  that  the  power  which  wrought  with 
such  mighty  eifect  will  continue  to  work  in  a  new  body, 
with  new  conditions.  Yet  even  here,  in  so  far  •^s  the 
power  put  forth  was  mere  self-assertion, — the  power  of 
egoism,  working  for  private  and  selfish  aims,  —  it  dies 
with  the  death  of  the  body.  All  egoism  dies  ;  world- 
conquering,  world-coveting  ambition  must  not  expect  to 
push  its  adored  self  across  the  gulf,  and  resume  its 
conquests  on  the  other  side.  No  self  so  sought  is  raised 
again.  All  efforts,  wishes,  and  pursuits  that  terminate 
in  self  are  self-limited,  and  end  with  the  grave.  Con- 
stantine  the  Great  rebuked  the  covetous  ambition  of  one 
of  his  courtiers,  by  drawing  with  his  spear  the  man's 
figure  on  the  ground.  "  Within  that  space,"  he  said, 
"  is  contained  all  you  will  carry  with  you  when  you  go 
hence." 

Even  in  Adam  all  is  not  mortal ;  and  yet,  as  we  sur- 
vey the  w^orld  of  which  Adam  is  the  type ;  as  we  follow 
the  chano-es  of  time,  and  cast  our  thouo;ht  alons:  the  line 
of  the  quick  succeeding  generations  that  have  occupied, 
each  in  its  turn,  the  populous  past,  —  there  comes  to  us 
from  that  survey  a  savor  of  death.  The  sentiment  im- 
pressed upon  us  by  the  contemplation  of  Adam's  line  is 
a  sense  of  mortality. 

"  He  lived  :  he  died.    Behold  the  sum, 
The  abstract,  of  the  historian's  page !  '* 

The  march  of  humanity  across  the  fields  of  this  planet 
is  a  funeral  procession ;  the  planet  itself  is  a  moving 
cemetery ;  the  ground  we  tread  is  saturated  with  the 
dust  of  our  fathers.  So  true  it  is,  that  in  Adam  all 
die. 


380  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

But  look  again ;  glance  at  the  world  as  it  is  in 
Christ.  I  mean  not  the  technically  Christian  world, 
but  this  human  world,  in  so  far  as  any  portion  of  it  has 
been  illumined,  enriched,  regenerated,  sainted,  by  that 
spirit  of  truth  and  love,  which,  while  it  dwelt  without 
measure  in  Christ,  has  dwelt  and  wrought,  in  varying 
measures  and  degi'ees,  in  countless  others  before  and 
since,  — in  how  many  prophets  and  heroes  of  the  Old 
Covenant !  in  how  many  martyrs  and  saints  of  the  New  ! 
in  how  many  lights  of  the  Gentile  world,  — the  Sakyas 
and  Zoroasters,  the  Socrates  and  Antonines  of  other 
faiths.  When  we  so  gaze,  there  is  nothing  that  speaks 
of  mortality ;  nothing  that  breathes  of  dust  and  decay. 
The  thought  here  is  not  of  death,  but  of  faith  triumph- 
ant over  death ;  of  the  victories  of  the  spirit,  of  ever- 
lasting life.  The  mind  recalls  a  venerable  host  whose 
names  are  written  in  heaven,  —  prophets,  evangelists, 
patriots,  apostles,  benefactors  of  every  kind,  differing 
widely  in  power  and  grace,  and  the  worth  of  their  work, 
as  one  star  differeth  from  another  in  glory ;  but  all 
agreeing  in  this  one  trait,  that  they  labored,  not  "for  the 
meat  that  perisheth,  but  for  that  which  endureth  unto 
everlasting  life."  They  gave  themselves  up  with  un- 
wavering faith  and  uncalculating  love  to  some  worthy 
object  in  and  for  which  they  lived.  Their  creeds  were 
many ;  but  the  same  mind  which  was  in  Christ  was  in 
them  all.  They  wrought  with  differences  of  administra- 
tions, but  in  them  wrought  one  and  the  self-same  spirit, 
asserting  itrsclf  in  all  diversities  of  operations  as  holy 
and  divine.  We  cannot  think  of  these  as  dead  and 
dust.  They  are  with  us  still  by  the  witness  of  the  spirit 
that  was  in  them :  vital  forces  in  the  realms  of  faith, — 


THE   CHRISTIAN   IDEA   OF   IjVIMORTALITY.  381 

tlie  spirit's  own,  they  live  unto  God  and  they  Kve  unto 
us,  witnessing  and  working  with  us  and  for  us  until 
now.  So  I  interpret  the  saying,  "In  Christ  shall  all 
be  made  alive." 

As  we  trace  the  presence  and  the  working  of  that 
spirit  in  human  history,  we  open  an  interminable  gal- 
lery of  the  pious  and  brave,  whose  unselfish  aims  and 
devoted  lives  have  raised  them  to  the  sainted  seats  of 
the  world's  undying  reverence  and  love.  Some  by  wis- 
dom and  some  by  charity,  some  by  patience  and  some 
by  daring :  but  all,  in  the  spirit  of  Christ,  have  been 
lio-hts  and  saviours  in  their  o-eneration.  Some  have  wan- 
dered  through  desert  lands,  and  some  have  traversed 
the  ocean  waste ;  some,  who  were  born  to  wealth  and 
rank,  have  renounced  their  heritage  of  earthly  splendor, 
and  spent  their  lives  in  poverty  and  obscurity,  company- 
ing  with  rude  and  ignorant  men,  perhaps  with  savage 
children  of  the  forest ;  some  have  perished  for  their 
country's  rights  ;  some  have  laid  down  their  lives  for  the 
truth  ;  some  have  been  eyes  to  the  blind,  and  feet  to  the 
lame ;  some  have  burst  the  bonds  of  error ;  some  have 
broken  the  fetters  of  the  slave ;  some  have  brought 
truth  and  newness  to  the  understanding ;  some  have 
brought  truth  and  newness  to  the  heart :  but  all  these, 
in  their  kind  and  degree,  have  been  made  ahve  with  the 
life  that  never  dies. 

This  is  the  Christian  idea  of  immortality,  of  the 
"everlasting  life."  It  is  not  a  "natural,"  but  a  moral 
growth  ;  not  universal,  but  special ;  not  a  heritage,  but 
an  acquisition.  It  is  something  which  appertains,  not  to 
the  natural  man,  but  to  the  spiritual.  I  do  not  question 
that  it  may  be  developed  in  another  state^  in  cases  where 


382-  RATIONAL   CimiSTIANITY. 

contrary  influences  have  made  its  development  impos- 
sible in  this.  - 1  only  deny  that  it  is  or  will  be  developed 
in  all  cases  as  a  matter  of  com'se,  —  developed  by  the 
accident  of  death.  I  deny  that,  without  development 
and  without  an  effort,  it  will  be  imparted  to  the  grovel- 
ling soul ;  that  where  it  has  not  been  attained,  or  even 
sought  in  this  world,  good  angels  wait  to  confer  it  in 
the  next,  or  that  God  will  hand  it  over  as  a  birthday 
gift.'  We  do  not  tumble  into  everlasting  life  when  "our 
feet  stumble  on  the  dark  mountains."  Only  the  moral 
and  spiritual  in  man  is  capable  of  conscious  immor- 
tality. "Flesh  and  blood  cannot  inherit  the  kingdom 
of  God ;  neither  doth  corruption  inherit  incorruption." 
There  are  human  creatures  with  whom  it  is  impos- 
sible to  connect  the  idea  of  immortality,  —  children 
of  earth,  whom  it  is  impossible  to  conceive  of  as  start- 
ing up  at  once  from  the  bed  of  death  into  new  and  im- 
mortal life.  On  the  other  hand,  when  we  see  a  man 
noble,  generous,  active  in  good,  we  can  hardly  imagine 
such  a  spirit  and  such  an  energy  suddenly  and  for  ever 
extinct,  when  the  blood  has  ceased  to  circulate  in  the 
mortal  frame  in  which  and  through  which  It  wrought. 
The  soul  in  its  essence  is  indestructible ;  but  inde- 
structibleness  is  not  immortality.  The  soul  as  an  entity 
may  and  will  survive ;  but  the  soul  as  a  conscious  agent 
may,  nevertheless,  suifer  death. 

Only  the  fulness  of  the  spirit  can  "  abolish  death," 
as  it  did  in  that  affluent  dispensation  of  it  in  the  early 
days  of  the  Church.  Brave  souls  may  look  upon  it  un- 
daunted; philosophic  minds  may  comfort  themselves 
with  the  thought,  that  this  is  a  fate  which  strong,  brave 
men,  and  feeble  men,  and  women,  and  little  children, 


THE    CHEISTIAN   IDEA   OF   OBIORTALITY.  383 

have  been  through  ;  that  we  can  bear  what  these  have 
borne,  sustained  by  the  everlasting  love  co-present  to  all 
the  exigencies  of  being.  But  only  the  spiritual  eye,  in- 
structed by  faith,  and  conscious  of  immortality,  can  look 
through  the  gloom,  and  dissolve  it  in  its  own  supernal 
light.  "If  a  man  keep  my  sayings,"  said  Jesus,  "he 
shaH  not  see  death."  The  spirit  cannot  see  death,  no 
more  than  the  sun  sees  the  shadows  which  it  casts  be- 
hind it. 

The  Mussulmans  have  a  fable  about  Moses,  that, 
when  the  hour  of  his  departure  was  come,  God  sent  the 
angel  of  death,  who  appeared  before  him  and  demanded 
his  soul.  Moses  greeted  the  angel  with  a  friendly  salu- 
tation, but  questioned  his  right  to  touch  a  soul  that 
had  had  communion  with  God.  The  death-ano^el  was 
baffled  by  such  assurance,  and  knew  not  how  to  pro- 
ceed ;  for  death  and  Moses,  it  seemed,  had  nothing  in 
common.  Then  the  Lord  deputed  the  angel  of  Par- 
adise to  convey  to  him  an  apple  of  Eden.  And,  as 
Moses  inhaled  the  immortal  fragrance,  his  spirit  went 
forth  from  him,  and  was  borne  upon  the  odors  of  Eden 
into  the  presence  of  the  Lord. 

This  is  the  ^Mussulman's  parable,  and  this  is  the  in- 
terpretation of  it.  The  assurance  which  disputes  the 
power  of  death  is  the  spirit's  unconquerable  faith  in 
spirit ;  and  the  apple  of  Eden  is  that  full  and  un- 
troubled vision  of  immortality,  whose  strong  attraction 
conquers  death. 


X. 


CRITIQUE   OF  PARTIALIST  AND   UNIVERSAL- 
IST  VIEWS   OF   PENAL  THEOLOGY. 


CRITIQUE  OF  PENAL  THEOLOGY. 


"  Ein  jeder  muss  seine  Holle  noch  im  Himmel  und  seinen  Himmel  noch 
in  der  Holle  fiuden."  —  Lessing. 


It  is  a  matter  of  comparatively  little  moment  to  a  right- 
minded  man  how  speculative  theology  may  figure  the 
awards  of  the  life  to  come.  No  doo-ma  relative  to  this 
subject  can  be  more  offensive  than  that  whole  system 
of  views  concerning  the  moral  order  of  the  universe, 
in  which  the  ideas  of  punishment,  and  escape  from  pun- 
ishment, (partial  or  universal)  play  so  prominent  a  part. 
The  objection  to  this  system  is,  that  it  turns  the  mind 
from  that  which  is  primary  and  vital,  and  fixes  it  on 
that  which  Is  secondary  and  subordinate, — turns  it 
from  the  everlasting  substance,  and  fixes  it  on  the  acci- 
dents ;  that  It  puts  happiness  above  goodness,  and  puts 
goodness  as  a  means  of  happiness. 

The  first  and  last  and  only  question  which  this  sys- 
tem propounds  to  the  individual  is,  how  to  escape  the 
eternal  damnation  to  which  it  supposes  him  doomed 
by  the  fact  of  his  humanity ;   i.e.  by  the  measure  of 

[387] 


388  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

sinfulness  proper  to  human  nature  as  such.  The  ques- 
tion is,  not  how  to  escape  the  sin,  but  how  to  escape 
the  damnation  incurred  by  it.  The  system  makes  the 
whole  essence  of  revelation  to  consist  "  in  the  discovery 
to  man  of  a  new  means  by  which,  without  any  previous 
eradication  of  sin,  sin  can  be  pardoned."  The  aim  of 
a  true  religion  is,  not  to  escape  damnation,  but  to  lay 
hold  of  everlasting  life.  These  aims  may  seem  to 
coincide  in  effect ;  but  the  difference  between  them  is 
heaven- wide.  The  one  is  dictated  by  selfish  fear :  the 
other  springs  from  exceeding  love.  The  former  is 
ascetic  in  its  tendency  and  method ;  it  deligljts  in  scru- 
pulous correctness  of  deportment,  it  accomplishes  won- 
ders of  self-denial,  but  all  for  self's  sake,  to  escape 
damnation ;  as  the  miser  denies  himself  the  gratifica- 
tions of  sense  for  the  sake  of  increasing  his  store. 
The  other  is  a  self-forgetting,  a  losing  of  one's  self  in 
some  worthy  object  for  its  own  sake.  It  is  written, 
"  He  that  will  lose  his  life  for  my  sake  "  (not  for  the 
sake  of  his  own  soul,  but  for  tny  sake,  for  the  sake  of 
truth  and  righteousness  and  human  weal)  "  shall  find 
it."  And  who  can  doubt,  that  one  who  devotes  him- 
self, a  living  sacrifice,  to  some  great  and  good  work, 
without  troubling  himself  about  the  salvation  of  his 
soul,  or  spending  a  single  thought  on  the  subject,  is 
in  quite  as  salvable  a  condition  as  one  whose  single 
aim  in  life  has  been  to  save  his  soul  from  death  ?  A 
very  poor  soul  it  may  be  when  it  is  saved,  and  very 
little  comfort  he  may  have  in  it.  However  free  from 
positive  vice,  however  unspotted  from  the  world,  it 
may  not  have  expanded,  not  developed ;  it  may  never 
have  fairly  come  out  of  itself  in  one  true  act  of  self- 


CRITIQUE   OF   PENAL.   THEOLOGY.  389 

abandonment.  A  very  little  soul  after  all,  and  scarcely 
worth  the  pains  it  has  cost. 

A  true  reliii'ion  will  rather  aim  to  make  us  for^-et 
ourselves  in  the  love  and  pursuit  of  noble  ends,  than 
seek  to  occupy  us  with  thoughts  of  the  hereafter,  — 
our  part  and  lot  in  another  world.  Let  theologians 
say  what  they  will,  that  is  not  the  first  and  great  con- 
cern, but  a  very  secondary  one.  What  we  want  of 
religion  is  to  develop  in  us  the  principle  of  love. 
Without  this  no  soul  can  be  truly  blessed,  and  this  the 
fear  of  hell  v,dll  never  awaken.  The  uttermost  that 
the  fear  of  hell  can  do,  is  to  keep  the  life  unspotted 
from  the  world.  It  can  never  kindle  the  flame  of  love  ; 
it  can  give  no  hold  of  eternal  life.  What  we  complain 
of  in  this  system  is,  that,  instead  of  taking  us  out  of 
ourself,  it  drives  us  back  upon  ourself,  in  self-torment- 
ing introspection.  Instead  of  showing  us  spiritual 
beauty  in  forms  that  shall  win  and  command  our  af- 
fections, it  turns  a  magnifying-glass  on  our  sins  and 
im worthiness.  It  aims  to  friohten  us  with  our  lost 
state.  If  it  does  not  succeed  in  that,  it  leaves  us 
weaker  than  before.  If  it  does  succeed,  the  remedy  it 
proposes  to  our  fear  is,  not  eradication  of  the  sinful 
principle,  but  a  transfer  of  the  penalty.  It  makes 
more  of  the  penalty  than  it  does  of  the  sin.  The  sal- 
vation it  offers  is  salvation  from  the  consequences  of 
sin,  rather  than  from  sin  itself. 

The  various  opinions  which  have  been  entertained 
regarding  the  moral  future  of  souls  may  be  reduced  to 
these  two  :  1st,  That  of  the  Universalists,  who  sup- 
pose that  all  souls,  after  a  purgatory  longer  or  shorter 
according  to  the  exigency  of  each  case,  or  even  without 


390  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

purgatorial  discipline,  will  be  eternally  blest ;  2d,  That 
of  the  Partialists,  who  suppose  that  only  a  select  por- 
tion will  be  so  blest,  and  the  rest  consigned  to  eternal 
punishment,  either  in  the  w^ay  of  annihilation  or  of 
conscious  endless  suffering.  From  the  earliest  period 
of  the  Church,  these  two  parties  have  divided,  very 
unequally,  the  Christian  world.  These  two,  and  no 
third.  No  sect  has  maintained  that  all  will  be  lost. 
An  eschatology  so  desperate,  however  agreeable  to  the 
Church  Despondent,  involves  too  violent  a  theory  of 
life  for  the  hardihood  even  of  penal  theology.  It 
seemed  absolutely  necessary  that  some  should  be  saved, 
and  that  hell  should  have  its  correlative  heaven,  were 
it  only  for  the  sake  of  perspective.  Simple  theism 
required  thus  much.  A  God  who  creates  only  to  de- 
stroy, or,  creating  to  save,  is  balked  in  that  intent  by 
the  wilfulness  of  his  creatures  or  the  power  of  Satan, 
and  cannot  so  much  as  save  one  soul,  would  be  equiva- 
lent to  no  God,  and  would  answer  no  theological  pur- 
pose. It  was  therefore  conceded  (not  without  seeming 
reluctance  in  some  cases)  by  even  the  most  zealous  of 
those  who  identified  the  majesty  of  God  with  revenge 
for  violated  law,  that  a  special  effort  of  grace  would 
be  made  by  way  of  showing  what  Mercy  could  do  if 
Justice  would. 

Universalist  and  Partialist  —  both  of  these  sys- 
tems, with  proper  modifications,  that  is,  with  a  rea- 
sonable extension  of  the  penal  discipline  on  the  one 
side,  and  a  reasonable  allowance  of  saving  grace  on  the 
other,  are  plausible ;  but  neither  is  demonstrable,  nei- 
ther possesses  the  certainty  requisite  to  constitute  it  a 
positive  doctrine  of  religion,  nor  is  it  in  the  power  of 


CRITIQUE   OF  PENAL   THEOLOGY.  391 

theological  learning  or  human  wit  to  establish  any 
thing  definite  on  this  subject.  Theology  here  must  con- 
tent itself  with  generalities  ;  religion  must  rest  on  those 
everlasting  laws  which  compose  the  framework  of  the 
moral  universe,  and  which  include,  together  with  this 
earthly  life,  the  heavens  and  the  hells  in  one  dominion. 

If  we  suppose,  with  the  Universalists,  that  all  souls 
are  predestined  to  everlasting  blessedness  in  .the  world 
to  come,  we  must  suppose  a  fitness  or  capacity  for 
such  blessedness  on  the  part  of  the  subject,  already 
existing  or  to  be  hereafter  acquired.  Without  this 
fitness  on  the  part  of  the  subject,  blessedness  in  any 
state  is  inconceivable.  No  man  in  his  senses  believes 
that  happiness  hereafter  will  be  thrust  upon  him  in 
spite  of  himself,  and  against  all  the  habits  and  antece- 
dents of  the  soul.  But  to  change  that  condition  of  the 
soul  by  an  external  force,  in  order  to  make  it  receptive 
of  happiness,  would  be  to  annihilate  one  soul,  and  to 
create  another  in  its  place.  If  we  say  that  this  capacity 
already  exists  in  the  subject,  —  in  all  subjects,  —  we 
are  contradicted  by  the  plainest  facts  of  nature  and  life. 
It  may  be  urged,  that  the  present  unfitness  arises  from 
causes  which  cease  with  death  ;  that  death  will  make 
all  men  blest  by  removing  the  obstacles  to  blessedness 
which  abound  in  this  world,  and  which  belong  to  this 
world  alone.  This  plea  supposes  an  eflficacy  in  death 
which  we  have  no  right  to  assume.  It  is  tliought  by 
some,  that  the  body  and  the  physical  or  other  external 
influences  by  which  we  are  conditioned  in  the  present 
life  are  the  cause  of  all  evil ;  and  that  every  soul  will 
be  found  fit  for  happiness  when  once  divested   of  its 


392  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

mortal  covering,  and  disencumbered  of  its  present  rela- 
tions. But  are  there  no  evils  beside  those  which  arise 
from  physical  and  terrestrial  relations  ?  Granting  that 
a  portion  of  our  sins  and  our  sufferings  have  their 
ori2:in  in  the  flesh,  there  are  others  which  cannot  with 
any  propriety  be  traced  to  that  source.  Some  organi- 
zations, no  doubt,  are  more  favorable  to  moral  rectitude 
than  others  :  but  experience  shows,  that  moral  rectitude 
may  exist  under  all  conditions  ;  that  the  most  favorable, 
so  far  as  we  can  judge,  do  not  secure  it ;  that  the  most 
unfavorable,  so  far  as  we  can  judge,  do  not  preclude  it. 
We  have,  therefore,  no  authority  from  any  grounds  in 
our  present  experience,  and  certainly  not  from  any 
other  source,  for  supposing  that  vice  and  misery  belong 
to  the  body  alone,  and  will  cease  with  the  ending  of  this 
bodily  life.  Moreover,  in  its  extreme  form,  — the  sup- 
position of  immediate  and  universal  happiness  hereafter, 
—  the  Universalist  theory  impugns  the  disciplinary 
character,  and  confounds  the  meaning  and  aggravates 
the  mystery  of  this  human  world.  If  all  men  are 
morally  fit  for  happiness  now,  it  is  difficult  to  under- 
stand why  this  world  has  not  been  so  arranged  as  to 
yield  that  happiness  now ;  and  why  we  are  doomed 
to  reach,  by  the  long  and  circuitous  route  of  mortal 
experience,  and  through  the  miracle  of  death,  a  good 
to  which,  in  our  present  capacity,  we  might  seem  to 
have  a  present  claim. 

Or,  adopting  the  modification  with  which  the  Uni- 
versalist theory  is  commonly  held,  if  we  suppose  that 
the  fitness  and  capacity  for  happiness  which  exist  not 
now  win  arrive  hereafter,  will  arrive  to  all, — that  all 
Bouls   are   destined   to   eternal    blessedness    after   such 


CRITIQUE    OF   PENAL   THEOLOGY.  393 

probation  as  each  may  require,  we  still  stretch  the 
right  of  conjecture.  We  suppose  a  remedial  and 
restorative  influence  in  the  air  of  hell,  or  (lest  the  theo- 
logical term  should  mislead)  in  the  future  transmun- 
dane  penalties  of  sin,  which  may  possibly  belong  to 
them,  but  of  which  we  know  nothing,  and  which  seems 
to  be  assumed  for  the  sake  of  the  argument.  Our 
observation  does  not  detect  this  medicinal  quality  in 
the  penal  sufferings  of  the  present  life.  There  is  virtue 
in  sorrow  to  educate  and  perfect  the  good,  but  none 
that  we  can  see  to  reclaim  the  wicked.  It  does  not 
appear  that  punishment  in  this  world  has  always  the 
effect,  or  has  in  the  majority  of  cases  the  effect,  to 
reform  the  sinner ;  contrariwise,  it  is  notorious  that 
men  continue  to  sin  and  suffer  to  the  day  of  their  death. 
What  authority  have  we  for  supposing  that  this  process 
is  arrested  hereafter?  or  for  not  supposing  that  the 
sinner  will  go  on  sinning  and  suffering  everlastingly, 
or  till  evil  becomes  so  predominant  in  the  soul  as 
utterly  to  quench  its  moral  life,  and  conscious  suffering 
ends  in  everlasting  death?  Who  shall  say,  that  sin, 
once  established,  may  not  grow  to  be  supreme  and 
ineradicable,  —  that  the  habit  of  transgression  con- 
tracted in  this  world,  and  confirmed  by  every  fresh 
transgression,  may  not  become  a  necessity  of  nature 
strong  as  fate  and  deep  as  life? 

Thus,  in  either  of  its  species, — that  of  immediate 
emancipation  from  sin  and  suffering  by  death,  or  that 
of  final  restoration  to  holiness  and  happiness  by  reme- 
dial suffering,  —  the  Universalist  theory  concerning  the 
future  destination  of  the  soul  is  pure  conjecture,  unde- 
monstrated,  incapable  of  demonstration. 


394  RATION AI.   CHRISTIANITY. 

Moreover,  although,  in  a  matter  like  this,  individual 
authority  is  of  little  account,  we  cannot  conceal  from 
ourselves  that  the  weightiest  names  in  the  realm  of 
speculation,  both  within  and  without  the  Christian 
Church,  are  found  on  the  side  of  eternal  retributions. 
Of  each  of  these  classes  suffice  it  to  name  one.  Of  eth- 
nic sages  our  example  shall  be  Plato,  the  supreme  name 
in  ancient  philosophy.  Plato,  in  the  "  Gorgias,"  delivers 
himself,  through  the  mouth  of  Socrates,  to  this  effect : 
"  It  behooves  that  every  one  who  suffers  punishment,  if 
justly  punished  by  another,  should  either  become  bet- 
ter and  be  benefited,  or  should  serve  as  an  example  to 
others,  that  others,  seeing  him  suffer  the  things  which 
he  suffers,  and  being  afraid,  may  reform.  Now,  there 
are  some  that  are  profited  when  punished,  both  by 
gods  and  by  men :  these  are  such  as  have  sinned  with 
curable  sins.*  Nevertheless,  by  torments  and  sorrows 
cometh  their  benefit,  both  here  and  in  hell ;  for  it  is  not 
possible  otherwise  to  be  freed  from  wickedness.  But 
others  have  been  wicked  in  the  extreme,  and  on  account 
of  such  wickedness  are  become  incurable.  Of  these 
examples  are  made :  they  themselves  are  no  longer 
benefited,  being  incurable ;  but  others  are  benefited, 
seeinor  these  suffer  on  account  of  their  sin  the  greatest, 
the  most  afflictive  and  most  terrible  woes  eternally ^■\ 
being  regularly  fixed  as  examples  there  in  the  prison  of 
hell,  as  shows  and  warnings  to  the  wicked  perpetually 
arrivinc:." 

Our  modern  and  Christian  example  shall  be  Leibnitz, 
the  optimist,  —  an  authority  second  to  none  in  metaphy- 


*  luatna  afxapTTJiiara.  f  tov  uel  xpovov. 


CRITIQUE   OF  PENAL  THEOLOGY.  395 

sical  profundity,  or  in  logical  acumen  or  conscientious 
love  of  truth.  Optimism  and  eternal  damnation  are 
things  hard  to  reconcile ;  but  Leibnitz,  in  the  "  Thcodi- 
cee,"  after  glancing  at  the  Universalist  theory,  proceeds 
to  say :  — 

"  Holding,  then,  to  the  established  doctrine,  that  the  num- 
ber of  human  beings  who  are  damned  eternally  will  be  in- 
comparably greater  than  that  of  the  saved,  it  behooves  us  to 
say,  that  the  evil  would  still  appear  as  almost  nothing  in 
comparison  with  the  good,  when  we  consider  the  veritable 
magnitude  of  the  City  of  God.  .  .  .  The  ancients  had  narrow 
ideas  of  the  works  of  God ;  and  St.  Augustine,  through  igno- 
rance of  modern  discoveries,  was  sorely  put  to  it  when  the 
problem  was  to  excuse  the  prevalence  of  evil.  It  appeared 
to  the  ancients  that  our  earth  was  the  only  inhabited  sphere : 
they  were  even  afraid  of  the  antipodes.  The  rest  of  the 
world,  according  to  them,  consisted  in  some  luminous  globes 
and  crystalline  spheres.  At  the  present  day,  whatever  limits 
may  be  assigned  or  denied  to  the  universe,  we  cannot  over- 
look the  fact  that  there  are  innumerable  globes  as  large  and 
larger  than  ours,  which  have  as  much  right  as  that  to  be  the 
abode  of  rational  beings,  although  it  does  not  follow  that 
those  beings  are  men.  ...  It  is  possible  that  all  the  suns  are 
inhabited  only  by  happy  beings ;  and  nothing  obliges  us  to 
believe  that  there  are  many  damned  among  them,  since  few 
examples  or  patterns  will  suffice  for  the  use  which  the  good 
may  derive  from  the  evil."  * 

This  reasoning,  it  must  be  confessed,  is  very  weak, 
and  altogether  unworthy  of  such  a  mind.  Its  fallacies 
are  too  obvious  to  need  any  comment.     Nor  need  we 


*  Th^odic^e,  Partie  I.  19. 


396  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

stop  to  inquire  how  far  Leibnitz  was  hampered  by  the 
wish  to  avoid  controversy  on  secondary  points  with 
the  theologians  of  his  day,  or  what  mental  qualifica- 
tions may  have  neutralized  his  exoteric  admissions.  I 
cite  the  passage  only  as  showing  that  so  resolute  an 
optimist  and  so  penetrating  a  thinker  as  I^eibnitz  be- 
lieved the  principle  of  eternal  punishment,  in  some 
sense,  to  be  compatible  with  the  goodness  of  God  and 
a  best  possible  world.  And  this  belief  is  more  un- 
equivocally expressed,  as  well  as  more  ably  vindicated, 
in  another  passage  of  the  same  work :  — 

"  There  is,  nevertheless,  one  species  of  justice,  and  a  cer- 
tain sort  of  rewards  and  punishments,  which  seems  less  appli- 
cable to  those,  if  any  such  there  be,  who  act  from  absolute 
necessity.  It  is  that  species  of  justice  whose  object  is  neither 
amendment  nor  example,  nor  even  reparation.  The  only 
foundation  of  this  justice  is  the  fitness  which  demands  a 
certain  satisfaction,  by  way  of  expiation,  for  an  evil  act. 
The  Socinians,  Hobbes,  and  others,  do  not  admit  this  punitive 
justice  which  is  properly  vindictive.  .  .  .  Nevertheless,  it  is 
founded  in  a  relation  of  fitness  which  contents,  not  only  the 
offended  party,  but  also  the  wise  'vvho  behold  it,  as  beautiful 
music  or  a  fine  piece  of  architecture  contents  well-constituted 
minds.  .  .  .  One  may  even  say  that  it  carries  with  it  a  certain 
indemnification  to  the  mind,  —  that  the  disorder  would  offend 
if  the  punishment  did  not  contribute  to  re-establish  order."^* 
....  Thus  the  pains  of  the  damned  continue  then,  even 
when  they  no  longer  serve  to  deter  from  evil."  f 


*  "  Et  on  peut  meme  dire  qu'il  ya  ici  un  certain  dedommagement  de 
I'esprit,  que  le  desordre  offenseroit  si  le  chatiment  ni  contribuoit  a  retablir 
rordre." 

t  Th^od.,  Partie  II.  73,  74. 


CRITIQUE   OF  PENAL   THEOLOGY.  397 

Turning  now  to  the  opposite  view,  we  shall  find 
that  Partialism  has  its  own  peculiar  difficulties.  We 
encounter  here  obstacles  different  in  kind,  but  equal  in 
their  way  to  those  which  embarrass  the  view  we  have 
been  discussing. 

If  we  suppose,  with  the  Partialists,  that  only  a  se- 
lect portion  of  human  souls  will  be  finally  blest,  and 
the  rest  consigned  to  everlasting  punishment,  we  are 
met  on  the  threshold  by  a  strong  objection  .drawn  from 
the  idea  of  God,  —  a  God  all-merciful  and  all-wise, — 
and  a  universe  formed  and  ruled  by  Infinite  Wisdom  and 
Mercy.  This  idea  seems  to  require  that  adequate  pro- 
vision shall  be  made  in  the  constitution  of  thins^s  and 
the  soul  for  every  case  of  sin  and  suffering  which  the 
universe  contains ;  it  seems  to  demand  from  the  infinite 
resources  of  the  Spirit  a  remedial  force  commensurate 
with  every  exigency  of  spiritual  life,  a  power  of  nature 
or  of  grace  by  which  the  most  corrupt  may  be  reached 
and  restored.  It  does  not  help  the  matter  to  say,  that 
the  sinner  sins  of  his  own  free  will,  of  his  own  free 
will  persists  in  sin,  and  so  dooms  himself  to  endless 
perdition.  That  a  being  should  have  been  created 
with  this  liability  in  his  constitution,  capable  of  so  sin- 
ning and  suffering  eternally,  —  this  is  precisely  the 
difficulty  in  the  case.  This  it  is  which  piety  finds  it 
so  hard  to  adjust  with  the  cherished  idea  of  a  Father 
of  spirits  and  of  mercies.  In  that  word  "Father,"  it 
seems  to  see  a  refutation  of  Partialism. 

The  old  defenders  of  this  theory  associated  with  it 
a  doctrine  of  predestination,  importing,  as  they-  inter- 
preted that  phrase,  that  the  sinner  sins  by  strong  neces- 
sity, acting  as  his  evil  nature  prompts,  incapable  of 


398  .     RATIONAL    CHRISTIANITY. 

acting  otherwise.  Modern  orthodoxy,  anxious  to  re- 
lieve the  idea  of  God  of  the  odium  of  damning  predes- 
tined sinners,  shifts  the  responsibihty  of  the  act  from 
the  Creator  to  the  creature,  and,  by  substituting  the 
notion  of  free-will  for  the  dogma  of  Predestination, 
seeks  to  devolve  on  the  damned  the  burden  of  his  own 
destiny ;  while  at  the  same  time,  retaining  the  partial 
Grace  of  the  old  system,  it  claims  for  God  the  undi- 
vided merit;  of  salvation.  But  the  shift  is  a  failure, 
so  far  as  the  honor  of  God  is  concerned.  The  justice 
of  eternal  damnation  is  not  vindicated  by  the  theory  of 
free-will.  If  human  free-will  is  capable  of  abuse  to 
such  an  extent  as  to  be  the  occasion  of  endless  misery, 
and  if  God  foresees  that  abuse  of  it  in  any  subject,  then 
no  theology  can  exonerate  God  from  the  consequences 
of  that  fatal  endowment,  and  the  responsibility  of  such 
a  doom.  The  difference  is  merelj^  nominal  between  a 
God  who  destroys  by  his  own  immediate  act,  and  a  God 
who  puts  into  the  hands  of  his  creature  an  instrument 
by  which  he  will  certainly  destroy  himself.  "  It  is  as 
sure  a  method  of  killing  a  man,"  says  Bayle,  in  his 
comments  on  this  point,  "to  give  him  a  rope  with 
which  one  knows  for  a  certainty  that  he  will  hang 
himself,  as  to  stab  him  or  to  have  him  stabbed  with  a 
dagger.  His  death  is  willed  as  much  by  one  who  uses 
the  former  method,  as  by  one  who  employs  either  of 
the  others ;  "  nay,  "  il  semble  meme  qu'on  la  veut 
avec  un  dessein  plus  malin  puisqu'on  tend  a  lui  laisser 
toute  la  peine  et  toute  la  faute  de  sa  perte." 

Theology  must  not  think  to  escape  this  dilemma  by 
taking  a  high  tone,  and  insisting  on  the  powder  which 
the   Creator  has   over   the   creature.      "Hath  not  the 


CKITIQUE   OF  PENAL  THEOLOGY.  399 

potter  power  over  the  clay,  of  the  same  lump  to  make 
one  vessel  to  honor  and  another  to  dishonor."  *  True, 
O  Paul !  Nevertheless,  the  question  is  not  of  power, 
but  of  right.  The  Being  who  possesses  this  almighty 
power  has  created  in  me  a  sense  of  justice  which  de- 
mands justice  of  the  Maker,  —  has  established  in  me  a 
judgment-seat  by  which  his  own  acts  are  inevitably 
tried.  The  answer  quashes  the  plea,  instead  of  refuting 
it.  It  may  silence  the  objector,  but  does  not  satisfy  the 
objection.  Unquestionably  the  potter  possesses  power 
over  the  clay.  Unquestionably  the  Maker  possesses 
the  power  to  make  one  man  wicked  and  miserable, 
and  another  righteous  and  happy.  But  Christianity 
has  taught  us  to  know  God,  not  as  absolute  Power 
merely,  but  as  Justice  and  Mercy.  "  Shall  the  thing 
formed  say  to  Him  that  formed  it.  Why  hast  thou 
made  me  thus  ?  "  The  thing  formed  in  this  case  is  the 
human  heart ;  and  that  heart  is  so  constituted  by  its 
Author  that  it  craves  to  know,  and  must  and  will  ask, 
concerning  the  purport  and  end  of  its  being.  And  if 
to  such  questioning  it  receives  this  answer,  "  Thou 
wast  formed  to  be  wicked  and  eternally  damned,"  shall 
not  the  thing  made  then  say  to  Him  that  formed  it, 
*^ Why  hast  thou  made  me  thus?  Why  thus,  O  thou 
Infinite  !  who  hast  all  power  to  make  and  mould,  even 
as  the  potter  has  power  over  the  clay,  —  why  hast  thou 
made  me,  thy  helpless  vessel,  to  be  the  subject  of  such 
deep  dishonor  and  boundless  wrong  ?  "  It  will  so  ask, 
and  will  not  be  content  to  receive  for  answer  the 
absolute  will  of  God  as  the  sole  and  sufficient  reason 

•  Rom.  ix.  21. 


400  RATIONAL  CHRISTIANrnr. 

for  such  ordination.  Could  it  really  believe  in  such 
ordination,  on  such  grounds,  the  heart  would  feel  that 
it  had  no  God  ;  for,  verily,  absolute  power  does  not 
make  a  God.  And  the  heart  would  sink  into  itself 
with  a  grinding  sense  of  infinite  cruelty  and  almighty 
wrong,  or  re-act  on  oppression  like  the  chained  Prome- 
theus of  the  old  Greek  fable, — profound  symbol  of 
oppressed  but  unyielding  manhood,  —  and  scorn  om- 
nipotence dissociated  from  justice.  But  the  fact  is,  the 
heart  can  never  truly  believe  in  such  an  ordination  and 
in  such  a  God.  The  Divine  has  written  his  nature  too 
deep  in  man  to  be  extinguished  by  a  dogma.  It  is 
possible  to  human  piety  to  love  God  without  demanding 
his  favor  in  return  ;  *  but  true  piety  knows  by  its  own 
deep  sympathy  with  the  Divine,  that  God  is  love,  and 
that  in  that  love  there  is  no  distinction  of  persons,  — 
that  all  beinfir  is  embraced  in  its  boundless  aflTection. 
No  one  felt  this  more  profoundly  than  Paul.  No  one 
more  ready  to  confess  it,  notwithstanding  the  words  just 
cited.  When,  in  this  same  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  he 
declares  his  belief  that  "  all  Israel  shall  be  saved," 
toofether  with  the  "  fulness  of  the  Gentiles,"  he  discovers 
the  real  conviction  of  his  heart. 

We  may  say,  then,  speaking  as  critics  of  the  Par- 
tialist  theory,  that  that  theory  militates  with  the  infinite 
love  which  reason  compels  us  to  ascribe  to  God,  and 
which  seems  to  require  that  to  every  creature  of  God 
its  existence  shall  be  on  the  whole  a  blessing,  —  that 
no  creature  shall  be  called  into  being  for  whom  in  any 

*  "  Qui  Deum  amat,  conari  non  potest,  ut  Deus  ipsum  contra  amat."  — 
Spinoza:  Eth.  V.  19. 


CRITIQUE   OF   PENAL,   THEOLOGY.  401 

case  it  would  be  better  that  he  had  never  been  born. 
It  matters  not  how  widely  we  extend  the  circle  of  the 
blest,  or  how  greatly  we  reduce  the  tale  of  the  lost. 
The  principle  is  the  same,  and  no  arithmetic  can  alter 
it.  Suppose  all  saved  but  one,  the  difficulty  still  re- 
mains. Humanity  demands  that  one ;  it  mourns  an 
imperfect  heaven  where  that  one  is  not,  it  hears  a 
wail  in  the  Alleluia  whose  choral  symphony  lacks  that 
complemental  voice.  Indeed,  the  smaller  the  number 
of  the  damned,  the  heavier  the  damnation,  and  what 
is  gained  in  one  way  by  such  concession  is  lost  in 
another.  What  is  gained  numerically  is  lost  qualita- 
tively. It  may  even  be  questioned  if  the  old  doctrine 
which  made  damnation  normal,  and  salvation  excep- 
tional, be  not,  on  the  whole,  a  more  rational  view  than 
that  which  saves  the  mass  and  abandons  the  few.  For, 
if  the  happiness  of  the  world  to  come  is  purely  a  matter 
of  grace,  the  free  gift  of  God's  love,  entirely  irrespec- 
tive of  the  merits  of  the  subject,  then  the  few  who  are 
excepted  from  that  grace  would  seem  to  be  more  hardly 
dealt  with,  and  to  have  more  legitimate  ground  of 
complaint,  than  the  multitude  of  the  lost,  where  perdi- 
tion is  the  rule,  and  salvation  a  rare  and  exceptional 
favor.  But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  the  hereafter  is 
determined  by  moral  conditions,  the  few  who  shine 
with  pre-eminent  holiness  are  more  broadly  distinguished 
from  ordinary  degrees  of  moral  excellence  than  the  few 
superlatively  wicked  are  from  the  general  mass  of  un- 
worthiness. 

The  insufficiency  of  those  distinctions  on  which  the 
rewards  and  punishments  of  the  future  state  are  pre- 
sumed to  be  based,  is  another  of  the  difficulties  which 

26 


402  EATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

embarrass  the  Partlalist  theory.  If  we  suppose,  what 
that  theory  commonly  assumes,  that  the  state  Df  the 
soul  is  unalterably  fixed  at  death,  —  the  wicked  pre- 
cluded from  all  chance  of  reform,  the  good  secured 
from  all  danger  of  lapse, — the  disproportion  between 
the  moral  distinctions  of  this  world  and  the  different 
fortunes  of  the  next  is  too  monstrous  for  reason  to 
contemplate.  The  infinite  difference  between  right  and 
wrons:  must  not  be  uro'ed  in  defence  of  such  a  doctrine. 
The  infinite  difference  between  right  and  wrong  is  one 
thino^ ;  an  infinite  difference  in  the  characters  of  those 
who.  during  the  years  of  this  mortal  life,  have  done  well 
or  ill,  is  quite  another  thing.  If  we  subtract  from  the 
character  and  life  of  the  righteous  all  that  may  be 
termed  good  fortune,  natural  temperament,  the  native 
strength  of  the  higher  faculties,  the  comparative  weak-' 
ness  of  the  baser  appetites,  education,  social  influences, 
opportunity,  absence  of  strong  temptation,  —  who  can 
say  that  what  remains  of  a  purely  moral  nature  is 
sufficient  for  eternal  life,  or  even  a  sufficient  guaranty 
that  the  individual  who  has  borne  so  fair  a  character  in 
this  world  will  preserve  the  same  in  another,  —  that  he 
will  not  change  from  saint  to  sinner  when  placed  in 
new  circumstances  and  solicited  by  new  relations?  So, 
too,  it  is  impossible  to  say  with  certainty  how  much  of 
the  crimes  of  this  life  may  be  due  to  external  conditions  ; 
how  far  the  circumstances  of  the  sinner  may  have  tended 
to  suppress  the  good  in  his  nature,  and  to  bring  out  the 
bad ;  and  how  far  the  good  may  be  elicited  and  the  bad 
counteracted  by  a  different  position  hereafter.  We  are 
not  warranted  in  ascribing  all  sin  to  circumstance ;  yet 
much  that  we  call  sin,   and  that  makes  the  apparent 


CRITIQUE    OF   TEXiVl.   THEOLOGY.  403 

difference  between  the  moral  and  immoral  classes  of 
society,  may  have  this  origin,  and  the  good  and  bad 
of  this  world  may  change  places  in  the  next. 

It  avails  not  to  say,  in  vindication  of  the  dogma  of 
eternal  damnation,  that  God  inflicts  no  positive  pains 
on  the  sinner,  but  simply  "withdraws,"  and  leaves  the 
wicked   to   their   own    devices.       This   witlidrawins:    is 

o 

precisely  the  thing  which  God  cannot  do,  —  one  of  the 
limitations  of  his  omnipotence.  Out  of  him  no  creature 
can  exist ;  in  him  and  by  him  all  being  subsists,  the 
hells  not  less  than  the  heavens.  The  mystic  Yggdrasil 
is  rooted  in  him  as  well  as  crowned  by  him. 

Yerily,  the  strength  of  the  Orthodox  heaven  does  not 
consist  in  its  exclusiveness,  or  the  rule  by  w^hich  it 
excludes.  The  rough  Norseman,  on  the  eve  of  regen- 
eration, wdien  the  priest,  to  his  inquiry,  disclosed  the  dif- 
ferent future  of  Christian  and  heathen ,  withdrew  his  foot 
from  the  water,  and  declined  the  baptism  which  would 
separate  him  from  the  cherished  heroes  of  his  house  and 
heart.  Many,  not  wholly  depraved,  except  in  the  theo- 
logical sense,  will  sympathize  with  the  honest  sea-king 
in  this,  less  tempted  by  what  the  ecclesiastical  salvation 
offers,  than  pained  by  what  it  excludes.  Even  from  its 
heaven  blows  the  east-wind  of  Orthodoxy. 

St.  Augustine  aflftrms  of  divine  anger  and  forgive- 
ness, that  God  does  not  change,  but  his  creatures.  He 
is  chano;ed  to  them  in  their  sufferins-s  "  as  the  sun  to 
sore  eyes  is  changed  from  mild  to  harsh,  and  from 
pleasant  to  oppressive,  while  he  himself  remains  the 
same."  *     And,  speaking  of  the  blessedness  and  misery 

*  "  Illi  potius  quam  ipse  mutantur,  et  cum  quodammodo  mutatum  in  his 
quae  patiuntur  inveniunt :  sicut  mutatur  sol  oculis  sauciatis  et  asper  quod- 


404  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITT. 

of  the  future  life,  he  identifies  the  one  with  a  clear 
vision  of  the  truth,  —  the  other  with  ignorance  and  un- 
reality. There  are  two  opposite  kinds  of  affection,  he 
says  :  "  one  by  which  the  blest  are  ravished  with  the 
purest  cognition  of  their  Author ;  the  other  by  which 
the  wicked  are  plunged  into  the  deepest  ignorance  of 
truth.  The  latter  will  suffer  real  punishment  by  means 
of  unreal  images ;  the  good  will  enjoy  real  beatitude  in 
the  contemplation  of  realities."* 

In  like  manner,  Maximus,  the  contemplative  theolo- 
gian of  the  seventh  century,  makes  the  nature  and 
punishment  of  the  wicked  to  consist  in  want  of  reality. 
"  They  who  wisely  meditate  the  divine  words,"  he  says, 
"call  by  the  name  of  Perdition,  Hell,  Sons  of  Perdi- 
tion, and  the  like,  those  who  make  to  themselves,  ac- 
cording to  the  affection  of  their  mind,  a  reality  of  that 
which  is  not,  and  so  come  in  all  things  to  resemble 
phantasms."  f     But,  above  all,  John  Scotus,  the  intel- 


aramodo  ex  miti  et  ex  delectabili  molestus  efficitur  quum  ipse  apud  seipsum 
maneat  idem  qui  fuit." 

*  It  must  be  confessed,  that  St.  Augustine  has  maintained  in  his  writings 
as  grossly  material  views  of  the  sufferings  of  the  damned,  and  of  the  physi- 
cal constitution  of  the  life  to  come,  as  have  ever  been  propounded  by  the 
Christian  Church.  See,  for  example,  the  second,  ninth,  and  tenth  chapters 
of  the  De  Civitate  Dei,  which  treat  of  hell-fire.  But,  when  he  speaks  of  the 
joys  of  the  blest,  it  is  always  the  Beatific  Vision  that  predominates  in  his 
conception.  "  Quapropter  cum  ex  me  quaeritur  quid  acturi  sunt  sancti  in 
illo  corpore  spiritali,  non  dico  quod  jam  video,  sed  dico  quod  credo.  .  .  . 
Dico  itaque,  Visuri  sunt  Deum  in  ipso  corpore."  — "  Ibi  vacabimus  et  videbi- 
mus:  videbimus  et  amabiraus;  amabimus  et  laudabimus." — Be  Civ.  Dei, 
lib.  xxii.  cap.  29  and  30. 

t  "  Qui  divina  sapienter  meditantur  verba  perditionem  et  infernum  et 
filios  perditionis  et  similia  appellant  eos  qui  quod  non  est,  sibimet  et  secun- 
dum mentis  affectum  subsistentiam  faciunt  et  sic  phantasiis  per  omnia 
similes  fiunt."  —  Quoted  by  Scotus  Erig.  in  the  De  Divisione  Nature,  lib.  v. 
c.  31. 


CRITIQUE   OF   PENAL   THEOLOGY.  405 

lectual  wonder  of  the  ninth  century,  who  treats  these 
matters  more  profoundly  than  any  one  else,  has  devel- 
oped in  all  its  bearings  the  idea  of  the  vision  and  par- 
ticipation of  the  Truth  as  the  chief  distinction  between 
the  good  and  the  wicked  hereafter.  Both,  he  says,  will 
have  their  intellectual  images,  as  it  were,  the  expressions 
of  so  many  faces  {jphantasicE  veluti  fades  qucedam 
expressce).  The  just  will  see  God  in  different  ap- 
pearances, according  to  the  altitude  of  coyitemplation 
attained  by  every  saint.  The  wicked,  on  the  other 
hand,  will  see  different  and  false  appearances  of  mortal 
things,  according  to  the  diverse  tnotioyis  of  their  evil 
thoughts.  As  the  deified  ascend  through  innumerable 
grades  of  divine  contemplation,  so  those  who  depart 
from  God  descend  ever  through  the  different  declensions 
of  their  vices  into  the  deep  of  ignorance  and  into  outer 
darkness.  But  the  gejieral,  natural  goods  of  human- 
ity^ he  maintains,  will  he  common  to  all.  "  These 
are  given  from  above,  coming  down  from  the  Father 
of  lights,  generally  diffused  among  all,  from  whose 
participation  no  one  is  excluded,  of  which  no  one  is 
deprived,  since  no  one  can  exist  without  them ;  no  de- 
merits can  impede  the  gift,  no  merits  promote  it ;  they 
anticipate  all  merit ;  by  the  sole,  abounding,  divine 
plenitude  Of  'goodness,  they  flow  to  all,  everywhere,  in 
unexhausted  effusion ;  in  none  are  they  increased,  in 
none  diminished ;  the  property  of  all  alike,  the  good 
and  the  bad,  they  are  loithdrawn  from  none  ;  eternally 
and  substantially  they  will  endure  in  all,  free  from  all 
corruption  and  independent  of  all  contrary  passion."* 

*  "Haec  sunt  data  de  sursum  a  Patre  luminum  descendentia,  in  omnc?, 
generaliter  diffusa,  quorum  partieipatione  nemo  excluditur,  nemo  privatur, 


406  EATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

Hell-fire,  he  maintains,  is  not  penal  in  itself,  nor  de- 
signed for  penal  purpc  ses  ;  it  is  a  part  of  the  universal 
good,  an  element  which  the  blest  will  inhabit  as  well  as 
the  wicked ;  what  is  torment  to  the  one  will  be  health 
and  joy  to  the  other. 

I  said  the  weight  of  authority  is  on  the  side  of  the 
Partialists.  It  must  not  be  forgotten,  however,  that 
the  other  view  has  had  its  advocates  in  every  period 
of  the  Christian  Church,  and  among  them  has  num- 
bered some  of  the  best  voices  of  the  Church,  from 
Paul  to  Schleiermacher.  The  opinion  of  Origen  on 
this  subject  —  his  doctrine  of  an  uTTOKaraaraaig,  or  general 
Restoration*  —  is  well  known.  It  subjected  him  to 
persecution  during  his  life,  and  to  heavy  condemnation 
after  his  death.  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  and  Theodore  of 
Mopsuestia,  both  eminent  in  the  Trinitarian  contro- 
versies of  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries,  inclined  to 
Universalism.  St.  Jerome,  while  insisting  on  the 
irrevocable  and  everlasting  damnation  of  the  heathen, 
expects  a  milder  fate  for  Christian  transgressors. |  The 
Christian  poet  Prudentius,  in  the  fourth  century,  proba- 


cum  nemo  sine  his  subsistit;  nullius  mali  meritis  impediuntur  ne  dentur, 
nullius  bona  merita  proecedunt,  quibus  prsestentur;  omne  meritum  prte- 
occupant;  sola  divina  bonitatis  largiflua  plenitudine  omnibus  per  omnia 
universaliter  inexhausta  efFusione  manant ;  in  nullo  augentur,  in  nullo  minu- 
untur;  sequaliter  omnibus  insunt,  et  bonis  et  malis;  a  nullo  retrahuntur, 
getenialiter  in  omnibus  et  substantialiter  permanebunt,  omni  corruptione 
contrariaque  passione  absoluta."  —  Ve.  D'w.  Nat. 

*  It  ought  to  be  stated  in  this  connection,  that  the  Restoration  of  Origen 
was  not  a  finality,  but  only  one  stage  in  a  great  revolution,  to  be  followed 
by  a  new  lapse. 

t  "  Sicut  diaboli  et  omnium  negatorum  et  impiorum  qui  dixerunt  in 
corde  suo,  Non  est  Deus,  ci'edimus  ajterna  tormenta,  sic  peccatorum  et 
impiorum  et  tamen  Christianorum,  quorum  opera  in  igne  probanda  sunt 
atque  purganda,  moderatam  arbitramur  et  mixtam  dementias  sententiam." 


CRITIQUE   OF   TEXAL   THEOLOGY.  407 

bly  expresses  the  prevailing  sentiment  of  his  time, 
when,  in  one  of  his  hymns,  he  makes  eternal  damnation 
a  rare  exception  to  the  universal  Benignity,  — 

"  Idem  tamen  benignus 
Ultor  retundit  iram 
Paucosque  uon  piorum 
Patitur  perire  in  aevum." 

The  prevalence  of  Universalism  in  St.  Augustine's 
day  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact,  that  several  chapters 
of  the  "  De  Civitate  Dei "  are  devoted'  to  its  refutation. 
After  that,  with  the  doubtful  exception  of  John  Scotus, 
above  named,  who  rather  hinted  than  confessed  his 
heresy,*  its  traces  are  lost  in  the  barbarism  of  the 
Middle  Age.  "  Dismiss  all  hope "  was  written  over 
the  entrance  of  the  mediaeval  hell ;  and,  until  the  Refor- 
mation, theology  seems  scarcely  to  have  questioned  the 
legend.  And  since  the  Reformation,  the  authorities, 
in  number  if  not  in  quality,  preponderate  on  the  side 
of  Partialism.  If  questions  in  theology  could  be  settled 
by  the  votes  of  theologians,  the  truth  of  Partialism 
would  be  established  by  an  overwhelming  majority. 
But,  in  such  matters,  one  original  thinker  and  indepen- 
dent critic  outweighs  a  hundred  traditionalists,  —  one 
fresh  voice,  a  hundred  echoes. 

Will  any  maintain  that  the  Christian  Scriptures  have 
decided  this  question  beyond  dispute  for  all  who  receive 
them  as  final  authority  ?  That  they  have  not  done  so 
appears  from  the  fact,  that  opposite  opinions  concerning 


*  "  Divina  siquidem  bonitas  consumet  malitiam,  ceterna  vita  absorbct 
mortem,  beautitudo  miseriam,  ....  nisi  forte  adhuc  ambigis  dominum 
Jesum  humanse  naturas  acceptorem  et  salvatorem  uon  totam  ipsam  sed 
quantulamcunque  partem  ejus  accepisse  et  salvassc." 


408  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

it  are  entertained  by  diiferent  sects,  each  claiming  to  be 
Christian,  each  professing  to  receive  the  New  Testa- 
ment as  final  and  divine  authority.  The  testimony  of 
the  sacred  books  on  this  subject  is  not  uniform :  the 
voices  conflict.  The  doctrine  of  Paul  in  the  Romans, 
as  we  have  seen,  is  Universalism :  other  portions  of 
the  Scripture  emphatically  assert  the  opposite  view. 
The  language  in  these  passages  is  strong,  yet  not  so 
strong  but  that  modern  criticism,  sharp  and  trenchant 
as  a  two-edged  sword,  will  pierce  between  the  words 
and  the  doctrine  supposed  to  be  contained  in  them.  * 
Indeed,  what  language  can  be  made  so  strong  as  to  be 
impervious  to  the  sword  of  criticism,  when  many  tran- 
scribers, and  many  mediating  witnesses,  and  many 
centuries,  and  a  foreign  language,  intervene  between 
the  writer  and  the  critic  ?  What  language  can  be  made 
so  strons:  as  to  bind  for  ever  thoufi^ht  and  faith?  The 
purpose  of  revelation  is  not  to  settle  speculative  ques- 
tions depending  on  the  nice  interpretation  of  words, 
but  to  infuse  a  new  spirit  into  human  things,  to  illus- 
trate great  principles  of  practical  import  with  new 
sanctions.  The  principles  are  eternal ;  the  dogmas  in 
which  they  are  embodied  are  limited  and  transient. 
The  question  is  one  of  the  antinomies  of  theology, 


*  We  attach  little  weight  to  the  verbal  criticisms  on  the  word  alcjvioc- 
Granting  what  has  often  been  alleged,  that  this  word,  in  its  strict  and  origi- 
nal import,  is  not  equivalent  to  our  "  everlasting,"  it  is  nevertheless  probable 
that  the  New-Testament  writers  connected  the  idea  of  endlessness  with  it. 
But  the  plea,  that  whatever  is  deducted,  in  the  interpretation  of  this  word, 
from  the  duration  of  hell  punishments,  must  also  be  deducted  from  the 
duration  of  future  bliss,  —  a  plea  as  old  as  Augustine,  —  is  utterly  futile  (as 
De  Quincey  has  shown)  as  an  argiunent  for  the  eternity  of  the  former. 


CRITIQUE   OF  PENAL   THEOLOGY.  409 

—  a  question  of  which  affirmative  and  negative  are 
equally  debatable  and  equally  doubtful.  It  is  a  ques- 
tion on  which  sentiment  and  reason  are  divided.  Our 
heart  is  with  the  Universalists ;  but  reason  is  shocked 
by  the  violence  of  the  hypotheses  which  Universalism  — 
theological  as  well  as  philosophical  —  seems  to  neces- 
sitate. Theological  Universalism  supposes  a  too  forci- 
ble interference  of  Almighty  Love  in  the  normal  pro- 
cesses of  the  individual  soul,  bringing  the  Divine  into 
self  -  collision.  Pliilosophic  Uiiiversalism  assumes  an 
inevitable  triumph  of  self-recovery,  —  a  fatality  of 
goodness  in  man  which  seems  to  be  based  on  no  analy- 
sis of  human  nature,  which  certainly  is  not  warranted 
by  any  mundane  experience,  and  whose  only  voucher, 
so  far  as  we  can  see,  is  a  brave  hope,  which,  however 
honorable  to  those  who  cherish  it,  is  of  no  great  use  in 
the  critical  investigation  of  this  subject.  Theodore 
Parker,  one  of  the  ablest  representatives  of  philosophic 
Universalism  in  this  country,  states  the  doctrine  with 
his  usual  vigor:  "But  there  is  no  spiritual  death, — 
only  partial  numbness,  never  a  stop  to  that  higher  life. 
The  soul's  power  of  recovery  from  wickedness  is  infi- 
nite ;  its  time  of  healing  is  time  without  bounds. 
There  is  no  limit  to  the  vis  medicatrix  of  the  inner, 
the  immortal  man.  To  the  body,  death  is  a  finality ; 
but  the  worst  complication  of  personal  wickedness  is 
only  one  incident  in  the  development  of  a  man  whose 
life  is  continuous,  an  infinite  series  of  incidents  all 
planned  and  watched  over  by  Absolute  Love.  ...  In 
all  the  family  of  God  there  is  never  a  son  of  perdition." 
This  is  fine,  had  the  author  but  legitimated  it  by  some 
demonstration  of  the  grounds  of  his  prophecy  beside 


410  EATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

general  reference  to  the  revelation  of  the  "Universe," 
from  which  he  professes  to  have  derived  it.  "I  think 
there  is  not  in  the  Old  Testament,  or  the  New,  a  sin- 
gle word  which  tells  this  blessed  truth,  that  penitence 
hereafter  shall  do  any  good.  .  .  .  But  the  Universe  is 
the  revelation  of  God,  and  it  tells  you  a  grander  truth, 
—  infinite  Power  and  infinite  Love,  time  without 
bounds  for  the  restoration  of  the  fallen  and  the  recov- 
ery of  the  wicked." 

I  am  far  from  questioning  the  fact  of  conversions  and 
reformations  in  the  world  to  come.  On  the  contrary,  I 
believe  that  to  countless  profligates  who  perish  in  their 
sins,  opportunities  and  appeals  and  gracious  influences, 
denied  in  this  world,  will  be  vouchsafed  hereafter,  and 
will  tell  with  saving  effect ;  and  that  many  who  were 
last,  will  be  first.  But  does  it  follow  that  all  will  be 
converted  ?  that  saving  influences  will  act  with  compul- 
sory force?  that  the  soul,  as  such,  is  fatally  bound  and 
predetermined  to  goodness?  that  every  Borgia  is  a 
Carlo  Borromeo  in  eclipse,  and  every  Brinvilliers  an 
undeveloped  Elizabeth  Fry?  Has  this  pleasant  fancy 
any  foundation  but  its  own  pleasantness,  any  authority 
but  an  undefined  conception  of  the  possibilities  of  Di- 
vine government?  It  is  not  a  natural  consequence,  not 
a  development  according  to  cause  and  effect,  but  a 
monstrous  accident,  a  wild  interposition  of  juggling 
miracle  which  we  expect  when  we  so  dream.  The  most 
distinguished  of  American  philanthropists,  with  large 
experience  of  human  nature  and  reformatory  discipline, 
expressed  to  me  his  conviction  that  some  natures  are 
beyond  the  reach  of  moral  influence, — proof  against 
all  discipline,  —  moral  incurables.     What  reason  to  ex- 


CRITIQUE    OF   PENAL   THEOLOGY.  411 

pect  a  moral  revolution  in  such  characters  hereafter? 
If  any  derived  from  the  nature  of  the  human  soul,  let 
psychology  declare  it.  The  divine  mercy?  It  is  easy 
to  talk  of  divine  mercy ;  but  the  question  is  here  of 
divine  power.  The  question  is  of  possibility ;  it  is 
whether  Omnipotence  itself  can  reform  sucli  character? 
without  so  violating  their  idiosyncrasy,  without  so  tra- 
versing their  normal  developments,  as  in  effect  to  de- 
stroy their  identity ;  and  whether  it  would  not  better 
comport  with  divine  economy  to  substitute  at  once 
another  soul.  A  conversion  which,  instead  of  develop- 
ing a  native  good,  should  impose  a  foreign  one,  would 
not  be  a  reformation,  but  a  metahtizosis,  a  transub- 
stantiation.  But  we  are  supposing  a  case,  in  which 
there  is  no  good  to  be  developed,  if  not  a  case  of  entire 
depravity,  —  the  existence  of  such  cases  may  be  denied, 
—  yet  a  case  in  which  the  will  is  irrecoverably  divorced 
from  good,  and  bent  on  evil.  Schiller  describes  the  hero 
of  the  "Robbers"  by  saying,  that  he  would  not  pray, 
if  once  so  resolved,  though  God  should  appeal  to  him  in 
person  with  the  offer  of  immediate  heavenly  bliss.  I 
fancy  this  conceit  expresses  a  possibility  of  human  na- 
ture, that  the  soul  may  arrive  at  a  point  of  antagonism 
where  the  pride  of  self-hood  shall  resist  all  appeals,  and 
a  self-centred  wilfulness  shall  say,  "  Evil,  be  thou  my 
good."  When  that  point  is  reached,  we  can  see  no 
remedy,  no  way  of  restoration,  that  would  not  compro- 
mise the  soul's  integrity.  Yet  even  these  cases  are 
scarcely  more  hopeless  than  those  of  weak  and  unstable 
souls,  swift  to  repent,  and  equally  swift  to  transgress 
anew,  whose  existence  oscillates  between  contrition  and 
indulo^ence.     The    moral  influences  which  recoil  from 


412  RATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY. 

the  solid  resistance  of  the  former  character,  glide  iiifruc- 
tuous  from  the  smooth  facility  of  these. 

If,  therefore,  we  allow  that  Universalism  is  a  natural 
and  legitimate  inference  from  the  moral  nature  of  Deity, 
we  must  qualify  that  inference,  admitting  here,  as  in 
every  general  principle,  possible  exceptions.  Univer- 
salism is  true  in  the  general  principle,  that  future  bless- 
edness is  the  normal  destination  of  man.  God  will 
have  all  men  to  be  saved,  in  the  sense  in  whicli  he  wills 
that  all  fruit-germs  shall  become  fruits,  and  all  human 
embryos,  well-formed,  healthy  men  and  women.  But 
this  destination  is  not  always  accomplished :  *  resist- 
ance or  defect  in  the  stuff,  collision  of  forces,  or  what 
not,  produces  abortions  in  the  one  case  ;  and  defect  or 
contradiction  of  the  will  may  produce  them  in  the  other. 
The  world  of  souls  may  have  its  failures,  as  well  as  the 
world  of  forms. 

Supposing,  then,  that  some  individualities  shall  prove 
intractable  and  insalvable,  what,  in  the  final  event,  is  to 
be  the  destiny  of  these  abortive  and  exceptional  souls? 
The  idea  of  a  state  of  endless,  positive,  unmitigated, 
conscious  suffering,  such  as  the  old  theology  prescribed 
for  them,  we,  in  this  age,  have  no  hesitation  in  repudi- 
ating, as  utterly  inconsistent  with  all  just  views  of  di- 
vine government  and  the  nature  of  the  soul.  However 
imposing  the  authorities  in  favor  of  a  doctrine  which 
numbers  a  Plato  and  an  Augustine  among  its  advocates, 
we  cannot  so  affront  the  more  imminent  authority  in 


*  "  It  is  true,"  said  old  Meletius  of  Mopsuesia,  "  that  God  will  have  all 
men  to  be  saved ;  but  it  is  evident  that  the  human  will  does  not  always  cO' 
incide  with  the  Divine." 


CRITIQUE    OF   PENAL   THEOLOGY.  413 

our  own  breast  as  to  symbolize  with  them  in  this  partic- 
ular. Though  a  vast  majority  of  the  Christian  Church 
affirm  it,  we  pronounce  the  doctrine  unchristian,  con- 
trary to  the  spirit  of  Christ,  however  it  may  seem  to 
accord  with  the  letter  of  the  gospel.  Orthodoxy  may 
steel  itself  to  approve  an  immortality  of  woe,  and  even, 
as  in  the  case  of  Tertullian  and  of  Edwards,*  imagine 
a  satisfaction  in  the  contemplation  of  it ;  but  mature 
reason  and  the  unperverted  heart  alike  and  instinctively 
reject  it.  Moreover,  I  hold  such  a  state  to  be  psycho- 
logically impossible.  Satisfaction,  in  the  way  of  frui- 
tion or  of  hope,  is  the  pabulum  vitce  without  which 
no  soul  can  permanently  subsist :  the  result  of  continued 
suffering  must  either  be  an  accustomedness  which  will 
make  it  tolerable,  or  an  intolerableness  which  will  over- 
power and  extinguish  consciousness.  "  No  soul,"  says 
Lessing,  "is  capable  of  a  pure  sensation  ;  that  is,  of  one 
which  even  in  its  smallest  moment  is  only  pleasant  or 
painful,  much  less  of  a  state  in  which  all  the  sensations 
are  thus  unmixed,  whether  of  the  former  or  the  latter 
kind."  f     More  elaborately,  Schleiermacher,  in  his  trea- 


*  See  a  Sermon  of  Jonathan  Edwards  entitled  "  The  End  of  the  "Wicked 
Contemplated  by  the  Eighteous,  or  the  Torments  of  the  Wicked  in  Hell  no 
Occasion  of  Grief  to  the  Saints  in  Heaven."  — "  The  miseries  of  the  damned 
in  hell,"  says  Edwards,  "will  be  inconceivably  great.  .  .  .  The  saints  in 
glory  will  see  this,  and  will  be  far  more  sensible  of  it  than  we  can  possibly 
be.  They  will  be  more  sensible  how  dreadful  the  wrath  of  God,  and  will 
better  understand  how  terrible  the  sufferings  of  the  damned  are ;  yet  this 
will  occasion  no  grief  to  them.  They  will  not  be  sorry  for  the  damned; 
it  Avill  cause  no  uneasiness  or  dissatisfaction  to  them :  but,  on  the  contrary, 
when  they  have  this  sight,  it  will  excite  them  to  joyful  praises." — The 
Works  of  President  Edwards  (Worcester  edition),  vol.  iv.  p.  290. 

t  Theologische  Aufsatze. 


414  RATIONAL  CHEISTIANITY. 

tise  on  Christian  Faith,*  has  shown  the  irreconcilable- 
ness  of  a  state  of  perpetual  torment  as  well  with  the 
constitution  of  the  human  soul  as  with  the  supposition 
of  an  opposite  state,  appointed  for  the  good,  of  perfect 
and  everlasting  blessedness.  If  the  torment,  he  says, 
be  supposed  to  consist  in  physical  pains,  the  conscious 
power  of  enduring  such  pains  is  itself  a  mitigation  of 
the  suffering.  If  remorse  be  the  punishment,  con- 
science must  be  active  in  the  sufferer,  and  that  activity 
of  conscience  supposes  a  change  for  good,  and  is  in  its 
nature  remedial;  —  if  consciousness  of  forfeited  joys, 
the  ability  to  figure  those  joys  implies  the  capacity  of 
like  enjoyment,  and  that  capacity  a  partial  reformation. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  such  a  state  be  considered  in  rela- 
tion to  the  opposite  state  of  the  blest,  it  is  vain,  he 
argues,  to  deny  to  the  blest  a  sympathy  with  souls  in 
torment  which  must  effectually  disturb  their  felicity ;  it 
is  vain  to  contend  that  eternal  pains,  if  decreed,  must 
be  just,  and  that  the  contemplation  of  God  which  con- 
stitutes the  blessedness  of  heaven  must  include  the 
contemplation  of  his  justice ;  that  contemplation  does 
not  exclude  and  cannot  neutralize  sympathy  with  suffer- 
ing ;  and  we  even  demand  of  the  righteous  "  a  deeper 
compassion  for  mei^ited  pahis  than  for  unmerited  J" 
In  discussing  these  matters,  one  principle  is  of  last 
importance  ;  namely,  that  the  future,  whatever  its  char- 
acter, will  be  a  necessary  consequence  of  the  present, 
the  natural  result  of  causes  now  at  work,  the  fruit  of 
a  good  or  evil  life.     Much  of  the  error  which  prevails 


*  Der  Christliche  Glaube  nach  den  Grundsatzen  der  Evangelischen 
Kirche  (ed.  1836),  vol.  ii.  p.  163. 


CRITIQUE  OF  PENAL   THEOLOGY.  415 

in  relation  to  the  future  state  must  be  ascribed  to  a 
disregard  of  this  principle.  The  essential  truth  involved 
in  the  figurative  language  of  Scripture  has  been  con- 
founded with  the  pictures  which  envelope  it.  Hence, 
in  the  doctrine  of  the  Church,  the  natural  results  of 
character  have  been  converted  into  rewards  and  punish- 
ments, these  into  states  of  rewards  and  punishments ; 
and  these  states  have  been  conceived  as  entirely  distinct 
from  each  other,  each  perfect  in  its  kind  and  eternal  in 
duration.  Such,  to  this  day,  are  the  popular  heaven 
and  hell  of  the  Christian  world.  The  consequences  of 
men's  actions  are  eternal.  Let  us  keep  this  principle  in 
view,  and  we  shall  see  that  the  future  state  of  the 
wicked  can  hardly  be  one  of  pure  suffering.  For  who 
so  depraved  that  no  good  has  ever  mingled  with  his 
earthly  life?  This  good,  however  scanty,  is  not  lost: 
it  must  bring  forth  fruit  according  to  its  kind,  and  yield 
its  consolation  in  eternity.  If  any  shall  object,  that, 
according  to  this  principle,  the  good  must  have  their 
sorrows  in  the  world  to  come,  and  that  "Heaven"  is 
not  the  unmixed  rapture  represented  by  the  popular 
faith,  I  have  no  wish  to  avoid  this  obvious  conclusion. 
On  the  contrary,  I  frankly  confess  that  the  popular  rep- 
resentation seems  to  me  to  err  as  widely  on  the  one  side 
as  on  the  other ;  the  idea  of  a  heaven  into  which  no 
sorrow  can  enter,  —  a  broad,  unchastened  day,  — 

"  Shining  on,  sliiniiig  on,  by  no  shadow  made  tender," 

seems  to  me  just  as  absurd  as  that  of  a  hell  whose  Sty- 
gian hold  no  joy  can  penetrate,  and  no  hope  relieve. 
The  heavens  and  the  hells  interpenetrate  each  other; 
and  the  souls  of  men,  with  few  exceptions,  hereafter  as 


416  EATIONAL   CHRISTIANITr. 

here,  for  a  time  at  least,  will  inhabit  both  or  harbor  both. 
The  difference  between  the  wicked  and  the  righteous 
consists,  not  so  much  in  the  funded  good  or  evil  of  their 
respective  natures,  as  in  the  tendencies  —  good  or  evil 
— established  in  their  wills.  These  tendencies,  once 
established,  will  draw  their  subjects  contrary  ways,  with 
progressive  divergence  sundering  souls,  the  good  from 
the  bad ;  attracting  the  former  to  the  Infinite  Good,  and 
impelling  the  latter  —  shall  we  say  to  the  Infinite  Evil  ? 
There  is  no  infinite  evil. 

What,  then,  is  the  final  destination  of  incorrigible 
and  exceptional  souls?  Not  endless  torment,  but  ever- 
lasting (spiritual)  death,  utter  extinction  of  the  moral 
life.  All  the  analogies  point  to  this  conclusion,  all  true 
deductions  from  the  moral  nature  confirm  it ;  and,  for 
those  who  demand  the  warrant  of  the  letter,  what  con- 
clusion more  just  to  the  letter  of  the  Scripture  which 
declares  that  "  sin,  when  it  is  finished,  bringeth  forth 
death  "  ?  Conscience  (or  self-consciousness)  is  the  life- 
principle  of  moral  natures.  The  tendency  of  sin  is  to 
weaken  and  corrupt,  and  finally  to  mortify  and  destroy, 
that  principle.  When,  accordingly,  in  any  soul  the  evil 
tendency  exceeds  a  certain  stage  of  development,  the 
soul  loses  the  power  of  self-recovery,  and — the  evil 
tendency  still  proceeding  —  arrives  at  last  to  rest  in 
evil  as  its  good,  and  to  sin  without  compunction,  or 
any  inward  restraint  or  contradiction.*  Then  —  the 
evil  tendency  still  proceeding  —  commences  a  process  of 
mortification,  which  involves,  as  its  final  consummation, 
loss  of  consciousness  ;   for  consciousness  supposes  a  ca- 

*  This  is  the  stage  of  Devildom,  or  "Evil  Spirits." 


CRITIQUE   OF  PENAL   THEOLOGY.  417 

pacity  of  distinguishing  good  and  evil,  and  loss  of  vol- 
untary power,  for  voluntary  power  involves  also  a  moral 
element.  Sin  is  then  finished,  and  has  brought  forth 
death.  The  soul,  as  a  moral  agent  and  a  conscious 
individuality,  is  extinct :  as  a  mo7iad  it  still  survives. 
No  longer  a  person,  but  a  thing,  its  condition  thence- 
forth is  not  a  question  of  psychology,  but  of  ontology.* 
The  view  here  offered  is  by  no  means  new,  but  has 
never  obtained  extensive  currency  in  the  Christian 
Church.  Yet  it  is  the  one  which  seems  to  me  most  de- 
fensible, as  being  less  violent  in  its  hypothetical  assump- 
tions than  Universalism,  and  more  in  harmony  with  just 
conceptions  of  Deity  and  divine  rule  than  other  forms 
of  Partialism.  The  only  point  we  may  regard  as  es- 
tablished in  this  matter  is  the  immortality  of  the  moral 
nature,  and  a  moral  connection  between  the  life  that 
now  is  and  the  life  to  come.  All  else  is  mere  specula- 
tion ;  and  so  little  is  gained  by  speculating  on  a  future 
state,  that  the  wise,  after  sounding  in  vain,  to  the  extent 
of  their  line,  this  uncertain  deep,  will  bound  their  in- 
quiries by  such  practical  conclusions  as  are  best  adapted 
to  our  moral  wants.  No  reform  in  theology  is  more 
needed  at  present,  than  one  which  shall  teach  us  how 
to  prize,  and  how  best  to  possess,  this  mortal  world. 
We  make  too  much  of  death  and  hereafter.  We  seem 
to  be  wandering  at  the  foot  of  a  mountain,  behind 
which  lies  the  land  of  our  dreams.     And  the  mountain 


*  To  those  who  are  curious  in  such  speculations,  the  Gnostic  cosmogony 
of  earl}-^  Christendom,  which  was  afterwards  unconsciously  revived  by  Jacob 
Bohme,  —  the  cosmogony  which  supposes  the  material  universe  to  be  the 
wreck  of  a  foregone  spiritual  creation,  —  may  suggest  the  possible  uses  of 
lost  souls. 

27 


418  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

casts  its  long,  dark  shadow  across  our  earth-life,  ob- 
scuring its  import  and  veiling  its  glories.  The  moun- 
tain exists  only  in  our  conceit :  the  land  of  our  hopes 
and  our  fears  is  in  the  soul.  We  carry  within  us 
the  "  Judgment "  to  come,  and  the  Judge,  and  all  the 
hereafter.  To  be  in  eternity  is  not  to  be  personally 
translated,  but  spiritually  transformed ;  it  is  not  to  be 
disembodied,  but  disenchanted,  unselfed.  To  fill  the 
moment  worthily  is  everlasting  life. 


XI. 


THE    TWO    TYPES. 


XI. 

THE    TWO    TYPES. 


When  the  gospel  was  first  delivered  to  the  world,  it 
had  to  encounter  two  contrary  tendencies,  represented 
by  two  different  classes  of  minds.  It  encountered  re- 
ligious prejudice  on  one  side,  and  philosophic  pretension 
on  the  other.  The  former  of  these  tendencies  was  rep- 
resented by  the  Jews  ;  the  latter,  by  the  Greeks.  No 
two  minds  could  be  more  unlike  than  the  minds  of 
these  two  nations,  —  the  one  perversely  straitened,  big- 
oted, intolerant,  but  firm ;  the  other  liberal,  expansive, 
but  curious,  fickle,  doubting.  The  one  demanded  exter- 
nal authority ;  the  other  demanded  philosophic  justice. 
The  one  required  that  a  doctrine  or  system  should  be 
authenticated  by  some  visible  token  ;  the  other  required 
that  it  should  be  scientifically  legitimated.  With  the 
one,  the  question  as  to  every  doctrine  was,  "Hath 
the  Lord  spoken  ?  hath  the  Lord  said  it  ? "  And  the 
evidence  that  the  Lord  had  said  it  must  not  be  internal, 
but  external.  It  was  not  the  nature  of  the  doctrine 
itself,  but  some  prodigy  or  supernatural  circumstance 
attending  its  first  annunciation.  With  the  other,  the 
question  was,  "Is  it  philosophical?     Is  it  logical?     Is 

[421] 


422  RATIONAL   CHEISTIANITY. 


it  capable  of  demonstration  ?     Does  it  harmonize  with 
this  or  that  school? 

The  Jews  were  a  nation  taught  by  prophets,  who 
claimed  a  divine  commission  for  what  they  uttered. 
They  delivered  their  doctrine  with  an  introductory, 
"Thus  saith  the  Lord."  The  Greeks  were  taught  by 
sophists  and  philosophers,  who  claimed  no  authority 
but  that  of  reason  for  their  opinions.  They  questioned 
nature,  questioned  the  soul,  analyzed  their  impressions, 
and  gave  forth  the  results  of  their  inquiries  in  the  form 
of  scientific  propositions,  subject  to  criticism,  to  be  re- 
ceived or  rejected  as  criticism  should  confirm  or  refute 
them ;  not  as  the  burdens  of  the  Lord,  to  be  received, 
without  question,  in  the  Lord's  name.  Their  wisdom 
was  reflective,  not  intuitive ;  it  was  elaborated,  not  in- 
spired. They  surveyed,  according  to  their  light,  the 
entire  field  of  human  inquiry ;  they  investigated  all 
the  questions  which  have  ever  agitated  the  human 
mind.  All  the  tendencies  of  modern  thought  were 
anticipated,  all  the  schools  of  modern  philosophy  are 
represented,  in  their  speculations.  When  these  specu- 
lations were  brought  to  bear  upon  Christianity,  they 
encountered  a  new  and  opposing  element.  Christianity 
would  not  accommodate  itself  to  the  wisdom  of  the 
schools.  The  schools  could  not  adjust  themselves  with 
Christianity.  To  Greek  philosophy  Christianity  seemed 
"foolishness."  As  little  could  the  Jews,  on  the  other 
hand,  reconcile  Christ  with  their  traditions.  Tliey  could 
not,  or  would  not,  see  their  Messiah  in  the  Crucified. 
To  Jewish  prejudice,  a  gospel  sealed  with  the  cross 
was  a  "stumbling-block."  Biit  the  gospel,  ordained  to 
be  a  new  wisdom  and  a  new  power  in  the  world,  pur- 


-THE   TWO   TYPES.  423 

sued  its  way,  regardless  of  Jewish  traditions  and  of 
Greek  philosophy.  "To  the  Jews  a  stumbling-block, 
to  the  Greeks  foolishness,"  it  proved  itself  to  those  who 
received  it,  "  the  wisdom  of  God  and  the  power  of  God 
unto  salvation." 

The  Jew  and  the  Greek,  as  Paul  found  them,  have 
passed  away  from  the  stage  of  this  world ;  but  these 
two  tendencies  remain.  There  are  still  these  two 
classes  of  minds, — the  Jew  and  the  Greek  ;  and,  corre- 
sponding with  them,  two  different  forms  of  religious 
thought  and  life,  —  a  Jewish  and  a  Greek  Christianity. 
Neither  of  these  is  complete  in  itself;  neither  expresses 
the  whole  truth  of  the  gospel ;  each  serves  as  a  check 
-on  the  other;  each  is  the  other's  complement.  True 
Christianity  is  the  reconciliation  of  the  two.  Let  justice 
be  done  to  both  ! 

1.  The  prevailing  type  in  theology  is  Judaism.  In 
the  Christian  Church,  as  everywhere  else,  the  major- 
ity depend  on  external  authority  for  their  opinions, 
especially  their  religious  opinions.  In  settling  for 
themselves  the  question  what  is  true,  they  look  out- 
ward, and  not  inward.  The  doctrine  which  shall 
gain  their  assent  must  have  some  other  basis  than  rea- 
son, or  than  their  understanding.  Is  it  the  doctrine 
of  the  Bible  ?  Is  it  the  doctrine  of  our  sect  ?  Has  the 
Conference  or  the  Council  endorsed  it?  Does  this  or 
that  preacher  accept  it?  If  you  inquire  the  grounds 
of  their  belief  in  Christianity,  they  refer  you  to  the 
signs  which  accompanied  its  first  promulgation.  The 
miracles  of  the  New  Testament  are  more  to  them  than 
the  evidence  of  the  spirit  in  the  doctrine  and  life  of 


424  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

Jesus.      They  appeal  to  the  Scriptures.      If  you  de- 
mand of  them,  "  How  do  you  know  that  the  Scriptures 
are  true?"  the  answer  is,  "Because  they  are  inspired." 
"And    how   do    you    know    them    to   be   inspired  ?" 
"  The  Church  says  so."     The  "  says  so  "  of  the  Church 
carries  greater  conviction  to  their  minds  than  the  evi- 
dence of  the  spirit  in  the  word  itself.     If  you  could 
convince  them  that  the  miracles  of  the  New  Testament 
are  not  true,   Christianity,  in  their  estimation,  would 
lose   all  its   authority.      The  doctrines  might  still  be 
true,  but  they  would  cease  to  have  any  special  value. 
If  you  could  convince  them  that   the   Scriptures  are 
not  inspired,  in  that  technical  and  half-material  sense 
which  they  connect  with  the  term  ;   that,  though  full  of 
a  divine  spirit,  they  are  not  exceptional  compositions, — 
convince  them  of  this,  and  the  Scriptures  would  seem 
to  them  to  be  deprived  of  all  ,their  significance.     In 
short,  truth  to  them  is  not  a  relation  between  their  own 
minds  and  a  given  proposition  or  aspect  of  a  subject, 
but  a  relation  between  them  and  some  authorized  per- 
son or  persons,  or  institutions.      It  is  not  an  act  of 
perception,  but  an  act  of  homage ;   not  an  individual 
experience,  but  a  foreign  dictum.     They  are  constitu- 
tionally averse  to  new  opinions,  or  such  as  have  the 
aspect  pf  novelty.     And,  when  they  assail  such  opin- 
ions, it  is  not  by  reason,  but  by  authority.     They  call 
for  a  sign,  and  triumphantly  appeal  to  their  own.    "  To 
the  law  and  the  testimonies  "  is  their  cry.     And  what 
they  cannot  find  in  the  law  and  the  testimonies,  accord- 
ing to  their  interpretation,  or  the  interpretation  of  their 
sect,  they  not  only  reject,  but  reject  with  scorn.     The 
asserter  of  such  opinion  is  not  only  an  errorist,  but  anti- 


TIIE   TWO   TYPES.  425 

clirist.  If  is  not  enough  to  disallow  his  doctrine  :  they 
rise  ao'ainst  it.  Not  content  with  if^norino^  it  for  their 
own  particular,  they  denounce  it  as  an  offence ;  and, 
where  the  times  will  permit,  they  punish  it  as  a 
crime. 

These  are  the  Jews  in  religion ;  in  modern  phrase, 
the  "  Orthodox."  They  are  the  conservative  force  in  the 
Church,  the  safeguard  and  bulwark  of  Christian  doc- 
trine ;  without  which  it  would  run  wild,  and  lose  itself 
in  endless  perversions.  If  not  philosophic  and  rational, 
they  are  politic  and  practical.  If  not  progressive,  they 
are  all  the  more  steadfast.  They  are  "constitutional." 
I  intend  by  that  phrase,  so  familiar  in  political  life, 
the  same  quality  or  the  same  attitude  in  religious  mat- 
ters which  is  commonly  expressed  by  it  in  relation  to 
civil.  We  say  that  a  statesman,  or  public  officer,  or 
public  act,  are  "constitutional,"  when  they  conform  to 
the  written  instrument  on  which  the  State  is  founded, 
and  by  which  it  is  agreed  that  the  legislation  of  the 
State  and  the  administration  of  its  affairs  shall  be  ruled. 
The  constitution  is  not  infallible  :  it  may  be  faulty  in 
some  of  its  provisions,  it  may  need  revision  and  amend- 
ment ;  but,  so  long  as  it  is  the  constitution  of  the  State, 
it  is  very  evident  that  wisdom  and  the  public  good  re- 
quire its  observance.  It  is  easy  to  see  what  mischief 
must  ensue,  what  disorganization  and  dissolution  of  all 
bonds  and  proprieties,  what  confusion,  what  hazard  to 
life  and  goods,  if  the  people  of  the  State,  and  especially 
those  in  authority  and  public  trust,  should  wholly  dis- 
regard its  provisions,  and  conduct  themselves  as  if  no 
such  instrument  existed,  as  if  nothing  were  settled,  but 
every  thing  left  to  the  private  discretion  of  each  indi- 


426  KATIONAL    CHRISTIANITY. 

vidual.  It  is  obvious  that  the  State  could  not  stand 
on  such  a  basis  as  that.  There  must  be  some  kind  of 
constitution,  written  or  understood,  to  secure  the  well- 
being,  to  secure  the  existence,  of  society.  And  there 
must  be  constitutional  men  to  maintain  and  execute  its 
provisions. 

The    Christian    Church  is  a  spiritual  society,  asso- 
ciated for  spiritual  ends  on  the  same  terms,  as  regards 
the  point  we  are  now  considering,  on  which  the  State 
associates  for  civil  and  temporal  ends ;   that  is,  on  the 
terms  of  a  mutual  understandinof  as  to  aim  and  action. 
And,    since   the   greater   part  of  the    business   of  the 
Church  is  the  communication  and  inculcation  of  reli- 
gious  truth,  it  follows   that    there  must  be  a  mutual 
understanding  on  that  point,  —  on  the  question,  What 
is  truth,  or  what  is  the  truth  which  the  Church  has  to 
teach?     That  understanding,  expressed  or  implied,  is 
the  constitution  of  the  Church.     And  when  I  say  the 
Church,  I  mean  each  particular  branch  of  the  Church, 
by  whatsoever  name  it  may  be  called.     Each  branch  of 
the  Church  has  its  constitution,  which  serves  as  the  basis 
of  its  action,  and  the  maintenance  of  which  is  essen- 
tial, not  only  to  its  prosperity,  but  to  its  very  being. 
Suppose  that  no  such  understanding  existed ;   that  the 
doctrine  of  the  Church,   of  any  Church,   were  wholly 
undetermined ;   that  not  so  much  as  a  fundamental  pro- 
position,   or   general   outline   of  Christian  faith,    were 
adiuitted  or  understood ;   that  every  proposition  which 
migUt   offer,   from  whatsoever  quarter,    of  whatsoever 
import,  were  equally  entitled  to  call  itself  Christian, 
and  to  be  received  as  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  ;  that, 
instead  of  a  constitution,  the  Church  presented  a  blank 


THE    TWO   TYPES.  427 

tablet,  on  which  each  might  inscribe  his  own  theory  and 
call  it  Christianity,  —  suppose  this,  and  what  follows? 
It  is  easy  to  see,  that  Christianity,  as  a  form  of  faith, 
would  soon  become  extinct,  overlaid  with  the  specula- 
tions of  all  who  incline  to  speculate,  with  the  visions  of 
all  who  are  given  to  dream.  The  Christian  Church, 
instead  of  the  "  Bride  of  the  Lord,"  would  become  the 
harlot  of  every  reformer  who  might  wish  to  dally  with 
her ;  the  temple,  instead  of  a  fane  for  Christian  wor- 
ship, would  become  a  pantheon  for  all  the  divinities  of 
all  religions,  or  a  pandemonium  for  every  abortion 
of  the  human  mind.  Thanks,  therefore,  to  the  Jewish 
party,  the  Orthodox,  the  conservative  party  in  religion  ! 
They  are  the  body-guard  of  the  Church ;  they  stand  by 
the  record ;  they  guard  the  ark  of  religious  truth  from 
the  wildness  of  fanaticism  on  the  one  hand,  from  insidi- 
ous speculation  on  the  other.  Let  them  have  their 
dues.  If  unfriendly  to  inquiry,  and  indifferent  to  ab- 
solute truth,  they  are  fervently  attached  to  what  they 
suppose  to  be  "  the  faith  once  delivered  to  the  saints." 
If  limited  in  their  views,  and  bigoted  in  action,  they 
are  serious  and  devout.  If  wanting  in  liberality, 
they  excel  in  zeal. 

At  the  same  time,  we  must  not,  in  justice  to  Christian 
truth,  conceal  from  ourselves  the  radical  vice  of  the 
Jewish  type.  Having  no  interest  in  truth  as  such,  but 
interested  only  in  the  forms  that  embody  it,  and  in  them 
only  as  something  given,  as  fixed  facts  and  institutions, 
minds  of  this  class  refuse  to  perceive  that  no  existing 
forms  or  institutions  contain  the  whole  truth  ;  that  truth 
cannot  be  thus  confined ;  that  the  forms  of  one  age 
become   inadequate   to    the   wants  of  the  next,  —  the 


428  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

human  mind,  with  its  capacity  for  truth,  for  ever  grow- 
ing, while  forms  and  institutions  remain  stationary. 
The  Jews  in  religion  are  unfriendly  to  progress ;  they 
oppose  themselves  to  progress ;  and,  had  it  depended 
on  them  alone,  religion  would  have  made  no  progress 
in  the  world,  and  humanity  none.  The  same  zeal 
which  levels  its  ban  at  every  new  word  in  the  Christian 
Church  would  ban  Christianity  itself,  if  Christianity 
were  a  new  dispensation  just  offering  itself  to  the 
human  mind.  One  cannot  help  feeling,  that  the  Jews 
who  require  a  sign  at  the  present  day,  and  admit 
nothing  without  authority,  are  the  genuine  descendants 
of  the  Jews  who  required  a  sign  in  the  days  of  the 
apostles,  and  would  not  see  it  when  it  was  given.  One 
cannot  help  feeling,  that  these  Orthodox,  who  contend  so 
zealously  for  the  old  way,  had  they  been  contemporaries 
of  Jesus  would  not  have  been  among  the  number  of  his 
disciples.  It  was  the  Orthodox  party  in  the  old  Jeru- 
salem Church  that  demanded  the  crucifixion  of  Christ. 
It  was  the  Orthodox  party  in  the  early  Christian  Church 
that  resisted  the  propagation  of  Christianity  among 
the  Gentiles,  except  they  first  became  Jews,  and  would 
have  kept  it,  if  possible,  a  national  privilege,  confined 
to  the  children  of  Abraham.  It  was  the  Orthodox 
party  which  all  along,  from  the  final  establishment  of 
Christianity  in  the  fourth  century  until  now,  has  uni- 
formly resisted  every  attempt  to  reform  the  doctrine  or 
the  polity  of  the  Church.  It  was  the  Orthodox  party 
which  clamored  for  Mary-worship  and  the  worship  of 
imao^es,  and  rao^ed  airainst  all  who  souc^ht  to  abate  or  to 
banish  these  corruptions.  It  was  they  who  sent  hell 
among  the  Vaudois,  and  presided  at  the  Council  of 


THE    TWO    TYPES.  429 

Constance ;  who  clioked  Savonarola,  and  would  have 
choked  Luther ;  who  unsepulchred  the  bones  of  Wick- 
liiFe,  and  kindled  the  fires  of  Smithfield,  and  instituted 
the  blood-bath  of  Huguenot  France.  It  was  the  Jew- 
ish  party  in  the  English  Church  which  enacted  the  Act 
of  Conformity  ;  which  wielded  the  Star  Cliamber  and 
the  Coilrt  of  High  Commissions  against  the  Puritans. 
It  was  the  Jewish  party  in  Puritan  New  England  that 
hanged  and  scourged  the  Quakers,  and  re-enacted  in 
the  ]N'ew  World,  the  ruthless  rigors  of  the  Old. 

In  fine,  the  Jews  in  religion  are  no  friends  to  truth 
as  such.  Though  fanatically  jealous  of  what  they  call 
truth,  they  value  it  not  for  its  own  sake,  but  only  for 
authority's  sake  and  tradition's  sake.  They  value  it, 
not  as  wisdom,  but  as  a  sign ;  not  as  the  bread  of  life 
to  be  nourished  by,  but  as  show-bread  to  swear  by. 
They  value  it,  not  as  something  to  use,  but  as  some- 
thing to  hold.  If  the  formulas  which  they  guard  so 
jealously,  express  the  truth,  it  is  accidental,  so  far  as 
they  are  concerned.  Any  other  formulas  which  should 
happen  to  have  been  delivered  to  them  would  answer 
the  purpose  just  as  well.  They  might  as  well  have 
falsehood  as  truth  in  their  creed,  as  to  any  life  which 
they  draw  from  it.  It  is  not  truth  that  they  want, 
but  authority. 

2.  If,  now,  we  turn  to  the  Greek  type  in  religion,  we 
shall  find  it  to  be  the  exact  reverse  of  the  foreooino-  in 
all  its  essential  features.  "The  Greeks  seek  after  wis- 
dom ;  "  that  is,  philosophy,  knowledge,  understanding. 
Conviction,  with  them,  is  not  based  on  authority,  but 
on  insight.  They  make  little  of  authority,  and  little 
of  tradition  ;  they  want,  not  only  to  believe,  but  to  com- 


430  RATIONAL    CHRISTIANITY. 

prehend.  It  is  not  enougli  that  a  doctrine  is  delivered 
to  them  by  the  Churcli.  They  cannot  receive  it  on  that 
ground,  unless  it  shall  approve  itself  to  their  investiga- 
tion. They  subject  it  to  critical  analysis ;  and  what 
analysis  confirms,  that  only  they  receive.  The  first 
question  with  them  is,  not  what  has  been  delivered, 
but  what  is  true ;  not  what  the  Church  teaches,  but 
what  Reason  aflfirms.  They  are  not  careful  to  abide 
by  the  Past ;  they  do  not  believe  that  all  truth  is  em- 
bodied there.  They  believe  in  progress ;  they  believe 
that  truth  is  progressive,  that  more  light  is  to  break 
forth,  and  new  discoveries  to  be  made.  They  seek 
truth  in  all  directions,  and  welcome  it,  or  the  promise 
and  semblance  of  it,  from  whatsoever  quarter,  whether 
it  be  the  School  or  the  Church.  They  love  to  supple- 
ment the  word  of  revealed  truth  with  the  teachings  of 
secular  philosophy,  and  to  reconcile  and  blend  them 
both  in  a  more  comprehensive  view  than  the  current 
theology,  in  their  judgment,  supplies. 

This  is  the  Greek  element  in  religion,  —  liberal,  in- 
quiring, receptive,  progressive,  apt  to  learn,  eager  to 
comprehend.  A  very  important  agent  it  has  been  in  the 
Christian  Church.  Whatsoever  of  progress,  of  free- 
dom, of  light,  of  enlarged  and  comprehensive  vision, 
the  Church  has  attained,  has  come  to  it  through  this 
medium.  Without  it,  the  Church  would  never  have 
emancipated  itself  from  Judaism,  from  Romanism,  from 
any  other  form  of  doctrine  or  discipline  which  has  once 
been  impressed  upon  it.  Each  successive  development 
of  Christian  doctrine  is  directly  or  indirectly  the  pro- 
duct of  this  element.  Personally,  it  is  an  indispensable 
condition  of  a  living  and  productive  faith.     Without  it, 


THE    TWO    TYPES.  431 

faith  is  a  blind  instinct,  on  which  no  reliance  can  be 
placed  ;  which  stimulates  without  directing  ;  which 
makes  fanatics,  but  never  discreet  and  effective  servants 
of  the  truth.  AYe  may  believe  without  understanding, 
as  we  may  also  understand  without  believing ;  but  the 
hiahest  form  of  religious  life  is  that  in  which  reason  is 
guide  to  faith,  and  in  which  believing  is  an  act  of  the 
intellect  as  well  as  the  heart. 

But  while  we  honor  the  Greek  in  religion,  with  his 
search  after  wisdom,  and  wliile  we  rejoice  that  this  type 
has  never  been  extinct  in  the  Churcli,  we  must  not 
overlook  its  essential  defects,  nor  blink  its  pervei^sions. 
We  must  bear  in  mind,  that  the  very  trait  which  consti- 
tutes its  merit  and  its  glory  is  peculiarly  liable  to  abuse, 
and,  when  abused,  is  more  mischievous  than  bigotry 
itself.  There  are  two  sides  to  the  love  of  knowledge. 
It  may  be  a  dutiful  desire  for  the  truth,  as  spiritual 
nourishment,  as  means  of  growth,  as  something  divine 
to  be  realized  in  life  ;  and  it  may  be  mere  curiosity, 
a  thirst  for  mental  excitement  anmsing  itself  with 
mental  images,  as  a  child  turns  over  the  leaves  of  its 
picture-book,  or  pulls  its  playthings  to  pieces,  with  a 
scrutiny  in  which  there  is  more  of  the  love  of  marvel 
than  of  wise  research.  There  is  a  seekins^  after  knowl- 
edge  wliich  looks  upwards,  and  aspires  to  the  light,  — 
aspires  to  it  as  divine  manifestation  and  divine  guidance  ; 
and  which,  with  earnest  speculation  in  its  eye,  still 
acknowledges  the  God-ordaincd  limits  of  human  vision, 
and  reverently  accepts  the  everlasting  mystery  in  which 
the  Absolute  hides  itself  from  finite  apprehension,  and 
restrains  intrusive  finc^ers  where  it  seems  to  see  the 
handwriting  of  God,  "  Thus  far,  and  no  farther."    And, 


432  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

again,  there  is  a  seeking  after  knowledge  which  looks 
not  up,  but  underneath  and  behind ;  which  pries  and 
peeps  and  peers ;  and,  not  satisfied  with  the  radiant 
and  majestic  face  of  truth,  puts  forth  its  impious  hand 
to  detect  the  forbidden  form.  Its  desire  is  not  for 
light  and  manifestation  of  the  Godhead,  and  heavenly 
guidance ;  but  for  penetrating  into  dark  corners,  and 
disembowelling  sacred  mysteries.  It  is  not  to  face 
instruction,  but  to  go  behind  it.  It  tolerates  nothing 
hidden,  and  is  for  ever  peeping  beneath  the  veils  which 
the  course  of  revealing  Providence  has  not  yet  removed ; 
and  which  science,  by  legitimate  methods,  has  been  un- 
able to  lift.  For  all  that  is  to  be  known  is  not  yet 
revealed,  and  not  yet  revealable.  The  language  of 
God  to  the  human  mind  is,  "I  have  many  things  to 
declare  unto  you  ;  but  ye  are  not  able  to  bear  them  yet." 
For  every  revelation,  and  for  every  discovery,  there  is 
a  time  ;  and  no  real  progress  is  made,  or  insight  gained, 
by  empiric  groping,  where  neither  revelation  points  nor 
science  leads  the  way.  If  it  were  possible  to  anticipate 
truth  by  prurient  speculation,  it  would  not  be  truth  in 
effect.  For  truth  is  not  an  entity,  but  a  right  relation 
of  the  mind  with  the  objects  presented  to  it.  And  that 
cannot  be  a  rio-ht  relation  in  which  the  natural  and  di- 
vine  order  is  violated.  The  rash  disciple  of  Egyptian 
mysteries  who  uncovered  the  veiled  image  at  Sais,  was 
not  instructed,  but  smitten  with  madness,  by  what  he 
discovered. 

Observe,  too,  that  the  Greek  propensity  in  religion, 
so  far  from  securing  the  inquirer  against  that  excessive 
credulity  which  might  seem  to  be  the  peculiar  attribute 
of  the  Jewish  mind,  is  itself  especially  liable  to  this 


THE   TWO   TYPES.  433 

weakness,  and  not  unfrequently  terminates  in  grosser 
illusions  and  wilder  superstitions  than  ever  authority 
imposed  on  those  whose  faith  requires  a  sign.  It  was 
the  Gnostics,  among  the  early  Christians,  —  that  specu- 
lating sect  for  whom  Christianity  was  not  sufficiently 
intellectual,  and  who  sought  to  piece  it  with  their 
philosophy,  —  it  was  they  who  received  the  spurious 
"  Gospel  of  the  Infancy,"  with  its  foolish  tales  of  mira- 
cles wrought  by  the  infant  Jesus.  Lord  Herbert,  of 
Cherbury,  believed  in  a  special  revelation  vouchsafed  to 
encourage  him  in  a  work  in  which  all  revelation  was 
denied.  And,  in  our  day,  many  who  professed  philo- 
sophic doubts  of  Christianity,  and  could  not  accept  the 
alleged  improbabilities  of  the  gospel  history,  have  given 
unhesitating  credence  to  pretended  visitations  from  the 
spirit-world,  of  which  table-tipping  and  anile  gossip 
have  as  yet  been  the  only  fruit. 

The  propensity  of  the  Greek  mind  is  to  require  a 
reason  for  every  truth.  And  it  needs  the  critical  action 
of  this  propensity  to  distinguish  truth  from  falsehood 
in  the  doctrines  presented  to  the  mind ;  to  secure  the 
mind  from  error  and  superstition,  and  that  unlimited 
credulity  which  is  practically  no  better  than  unbelief. 
But  let  it  be  remembered  that  truth  is  not  the  product 
of  reason  ;  and  that  there  are  truths  for  which  no  reason 
can  be  given,  but  the  reason  assigned  for  the  being  of 
God,  "  I  am  because  I  am."  This  divine  because  is 
the  terminus  of  human  inquiry  in  religion  and  philoso- 
phy, beyond  which  speculation  is  fruitless,  and  where 
reverent  minds  will  bow  submissive,  and  inquiry  yield 
to  faith. 

A  mind  indulging  this  bias,   and  pushing  this  pro- 

28 


434  RATIONAL   CmilSTIANITY. 

pensity  without  heed  and  without  check,  will  be  very 
likely  to  lose  its  self-possession,  and  either  to  founder 
in  the  realm  of  inanities,  without  bottom  and  without 
goal;  or,  what  is  equally  bad,  to  entangle  itself  with 
life-long,  inexorable  bondage.  These  are  the  minds  that 
riot  in  ultraisms.  The  complexion  of  their  ultraisms 
depends  on  accidental  conditions.  In  one  direction 
they  become  brawling  infidels  ;  men  who  glory  in  hav- 
ing no  God  and  no  hope,  no  calling  but  corruption, 
and  no  destination  but  the  grave.  In  another  direction 
they  become  vehement  schismatics,  disorganizers,  de- 
structives ;  anti-church,  anti-state,  anti-law  ;  implacably 
hostile  to  every  thing  established,  and,  above  all,  to 
established  peace  and  good-will  among  men  :  or  if,  as 
sometimes  chances,  they  land  in  the  Church  of  Rome, 
they  find  special  satisfaction  in  all  the  extreme  and 
most  offensive  features  of  that  religion ;  they  urge  its 
exclusive  principles  with  a  rigor  which  exceeds  the  con- 
sciousness of  native  Romanism.  They  out-fulminate 
the  Vatican,  and  complacently  surrender  to  damnation 
their  former  acquaintance,  and  the  greater  part  of  man- 
kind. 

Such  are  the  vagaries  incident  to  minds  of  this  class. 
They  are  liable  to  either  and  any  extreme  of  supersti- 
tion or  unbelief.  Seeking  after  wisdom  is  a  brave 
pursuit ;  but  the  truest  wisdom  comes  not  by  the  Greek 
method.  None  so  likely  to  depart  from  wisdom  as  he 
who  seeks  it  through  the  understanding  alone.  I 
picture  to  myself  the  course  of  such  a  spirit  diverging 
ever  farther  from  the  Source  of  truth,  turning  from  the 
sun  in  quest  of  light,  and  losing  itself  in  endless  aber- 
ration. 


THE    TWO   TYPES.  435 

The  Greek  mind  inclines  to  metaphysic  subtleties,  and 
delights  in  curious  speculations  and  abstract  questions, 
wlilcli  have  no  bearing  on  practical  life.  It  was  the 
Greek  that  introduced  those  perplexing  questions  of 
speculative  theology,  those  controversies  respecting  the 
nature  of  the  Godhead,  and  the  nature  of  the  Word, 
which  rent  the  early  Church,  and  which  still  divide  the 
Christian  world.  It  was  the  Greek  Fathers  who  first 
mingled  metaphysic  subtleties  with  Christian  doctrine. 
All  those  weary  disputations  —  Arian,  Homousian,  Ho- 
moiouslan,  Heterusian,  Monophy sites,  Monotheletes  — 
which  confuse  the  records  of  primitive  ecclesiastical 
history  are  of  Greek  manufacture.  And  whatsoever 
of  scholastic  theorizing  and  metapliysic  speculation, 
rationalistic,  Calvinistic,  transcendental,  in  later  time 
has  perplexed  the  Christian  mind,  has  in  it  something 
of  the  old  Greek  element. 

The  Jew  and  the  Greek  —  both  types  have  existed 
in  the  Church  from  the  beo'Inninsf,  and  will  continue  to 
exist.  Eacli  has  its  merits  and  its  dangers :  either, 
when  exao-o'crated,  is  fraught  with  evil ;  the  one  resultinfj* 
in  bigotry  and  superstition,  the  other  in  bleak  negation 
or  mystic  aberration.  Unhappily,  they  are  found  too 
often  disjoined.  If  we  look  around  on  the  w^orld  of 
our  acquaintance,  among  those  whose  minds  are  active 
in  religion,  we  find  the  Jew  and  the  Greek  eacli 
marked  and  distinct,  —  on  the  one  hand,  the  rigorous 
conservative,  the  slave  of  tradition,  the  sticlder  for  the 
letter,  narrow,  repulsive,  hard ;  on  the  other,  the  rash 
innovator,  the  wild  theorist,  transcendentalist,  mystic, 
genial  and  quick,  but  loose,  uncertain,  vague.     A  true 


4:36  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

religion  unites  both  elements.  The  co-action  of  both 
is  required  for  a  healthy  spiritual  growth.  We  need 
the  Jew;  we  need  the  sign,  —  external,  supreme  au- 
thority. We  need  the  ultimate  appeal  of  a  given 
word  to  make  our  Christianity  something  more  than 
a  system  of  philosophy,  a  human  invention,  a  fabric  of 
the  brain ;  to  make  it  a  faith,  a  religion,  a  certainty, 
a  sphitual  rock  in  the  flood  of  thought  and  the  tide  of 
time.  And  we  need  the  Greek  ;  we  need  the  reflective, 
intellectual  element  to  make  religion  something  more 
than  a  charnel  and  a  sleep ;  to  .give  it  a  propulsive  and 
quickening  influence ;  to  give  us  in  it  and  through  it  an 
abundant  entrance  into  the  everlasting ;  to  make  it  a 
progress  and  a  life. 

Let  each  supply  what  the  other  lacks.  Is  your 
religion  of  the  Jewish  type,  —  a  religion  of  authority, 
of  rigid  literality?  Endeavor  to  enlarge  your  thought 
and  to  liberalize  your  mind  by  intercourse  with  minds 
of  a  different  cast ;  converse  freely  with  thinkers  of 
every  name ;  make  yourself  familiar  with  the  literature 
and  philosophy  of  religion  beyond  the  limits  of  your 
School  and  Church.  Add  to  conviction,  insight;  to 
tradition,  reason  ;  to  dogma,  charity  ;  to  the  letter,  life. 
Let  ever  green  nature  and  loving  humanity  twine  their 
tendrils  around  the  walls  of  your  Zion,  and  relieve  with 
a  gracious  tolerance  the  harsh  angularity  of  your  creed. 

Are  you  a  Greek  in  religion,  — rationalistic,  studious 
of  knowledge,  addicted  to  speculation,  impatient  of 
authority,  seeking  in  the  human  understanding  alone 
the  oTounds  of  belief?  Consider  that  if  mortal  wit 
were  equal  to  all  the  wants  of  the  soul,  and  to  all  the 
problems   of  spirit  and  life,   no    historic    dispensation 


THE   TWO   TYPES.  437 

would  have  been  vouchsafed ;  no  church  would  ever 
have  been  established  in  the  world.  Keason  as  you 
will,  examine,  question  :  but  overlook  not  the  necessi- 
ties of  human  nature ;  accept  the  limits  of  human  in- 
sight, and  temper  the  boldness  of  speculation  with 
reverent  regard  for  the  manifest  course  of  Providence 
in  the  education  of  the  human  race,  and  with  something 
of  respect  for  the  faith  of  mankind. 

"  The  Jews  require  a  sign,  and  the  Greeks  seek  after 
wisdom ; "  but  Christianity  comprehends  and  embodies 
both  wisdom  and  sign.  Christianity  is  larger  than 
Jewish  authority,  and  deeper  than  Grecian  philosophy ; 
and  when  in  its  infancy  it  burst  upon  the  world,  it 
swept  away  both  ;  it  bore  down  synagogue  and  academy ; 
it  floated  Gamaliel  and  Plato,  resolved  them  into  itself, 
and,  preserving  what  truth  was  in  each,  reproduced  it 
in  its  own  reconciling  and  transcendent  kind.  So  it 
will  do  in  all  time  to  come  with  the  sects  and  schools 
that  have  sprung  from  its  bosom.  It  will  absorb  them 
all,  —  will  survive  them  all.  That  steady  flood  will 
swallow  up  all  our  creeds,  philosophies,  organizations, 
reforms,  —  all  our  prophecy,  all  our  knowledge  ;  while, 
forcing  its  way  through  the  heart  of  the  world,  it  bears 
humanity  on  from  truth  to  truth,  and  from  life  to  life. 


XII. 

THE    MORAL    IDEAL. 


xn. 

THE     MORAL    IDEAL. 


Different  ages  and  religions  entertain  very  different 
notions  of  moral  excellence,  which  they  express  in  the 
models  propounded  for  the  admiration  and  respect  of 
mankind.  In  many  of  the  religions  of  the  world, 
human  models  have  been  exalted  into  objects  of  wor- 
ship. In  the  Greek  and  Roman  cult,  a  considerable 
part  of  the  rites  of  worship  consisted  in  honors  paid  to 
deified  men.  The  Herakles  who  forms  so  prominent  a 
figure  in  the  Greek  mythology,  is  an  instance  of  this 
deification,  the  prototype  of  many  worthies,  —  part  his- 
toric, part  mythic,  —  whom  their  virtues  raised  to  the 
company  of  the  gods.  The  ritual  name  by  which  these 
worthies  were  designated  was  "  hero ;  "  a  term  which 
expressed  the  highest  conception  then  entertained  of 
human  excellence. 

The  Christian  Church,  in  its  Roman  branch,  adopted 
the  same  practice.  What  in  ancient  Rome  was  Apothe- 
osis, in  modern  Rome  is  Canonization.  Canonization 
is  the  declaration  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  by  her  consti- 
tuted  authorities,  that  a   certain   individual   is   a   holy 

[Ul] 


442  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

person;  one  who,  having  passed  dh-ectly  to  heaven  with- 
out enduring  the  pairs  of  purgatory,  is  to  be  invoked 
with  prayers  and  lionored  with  appropriate  worship. 
The  ritual  name  by  which  these  Christian  heroes  are 
designated  is  "  saint ;  ^'  a  name  which  expresses  the  high- 
est ecclesiastical  conception  of  human  excellence.  This 
is  the  present  technical  meaning  of  the  term  as  applied 
to  worthies  of  the  Christian  Church.  The  ancient 
apostolic  use  was  different.  Wherever  the  word  "  saint" 
occurs  in  the  New  Testament,  it  means  simply  Christian, 
without  the  attribution  of  j^ersonal  merit.  And  after 
the  time  of  the  apostles,  for  more  than  a  century. 
Christians  without  discrimination  were  called  "  saints." 
By  that  term  they  were  distinguished  from  Jew  and 
Gentile,  but  not  from  each  other. 

This  change  in  the  use  of  the  word  is  very  remark- 
able. It  indicates  the  different  view,  entertained  by 
different  periods,  of  what  constitutes  holiness.  In  the 
view  of  the  early  Church,  holiness  resulted  from  posi- 
tion,—  the  position  given  by  the  Christian  calling.  In 
the  view  of  the  later  Church,  position  results  from  holi- 
ness. In  the  former  case.  Christians  were  regarded  as 
"  called  "  in  a  special  sense.  It  was  not  so  much  their 
own  deliberate  clioice,  as  it  was  the  special  favor  of  God, 
that  had  made  them  Christians,  according  to  the  say- 
ing, "Ye  have  not  chosen  me,  but  I  have  chosen  you." 
Being  chosen,  called  from  amid  the  great  mass  of  the 
profane  world,  they  were  a  separate  and  select  race  : 
"  Ye  are  a  chosen  generation,  a  royal  priesthood,  a  holy 
nation,  a  peculiar  people."  Their  separation  was  their 
sanctity.  As  the  age  advanced,  and  Christendom  ex- 
tended its  borders  ;    and  Christianity,  mstead  of  a  spe- 


THE   MOEAL  IDEAL.  443 

cialty  iind  a  separation,  became  an  empire  and  a  world, 

—  this  view  of  sanctity  got  obsolete.  Christian  and  saint 
were  no  longer  synonymous.  The  idea  of  holiness  was 
then  transferred  from  a  providential  state  to  a  voluntary 
act,  from  calling  to  character,  from  the  lot  to  the  life. 
But  still  the  Church  so  far  maintained  the  oris^inal  idea 
as  to  recognize  no  holiness  outside  of  the  Christian  fold. 
And,  as  being  within  that  fold  was  purely  providential, 

—  a  matter  of  nativity  or  opportunity, — holiness  was 
still,  in  j^art,  external  and  accidental.  Accordingly, 
the  saint  of  the  Christian  Church  represents  the  two 
elements  of  fortune  and  character,  —  an  accidental  and 
a  moral  element :  the  fortune  consistinsr  in  the  circum- 
stance  of  Christian  nativity  or  Christian  opportunity ; 
the  character  being  his  own  developed  and  disciplined 
will. 

Res^ardino^  the  moral  element  in  the  Church  idea  of 
the  saint,  we  have  here  a  type  of  character  differing 
widely  from  that  represented  in  the  objects  of  Gentile 
adoration.  The  deified  men  of  the  Gentile  Church 
were  the  strong,  the  brave,  the  beautiful,  the  eminent, 
and  such  as  were  distinguished  by  worldly  success. 
The  canonized  worthies  of  the  Christian  Church  were 
men  and  women,  distinguished  hy  moral  exactness  and 
religious  devotion.  Here,  then,  we  have  a  point  of  com- 
parison by  which  to  estimate  the  different  tendencies  of 
the  Gentile  and  the  Christian  mind.  Here  we  have 
their  respective  ideals  of  human  excellence,  the  charac- 
ters to  which  they  paid  the  highest  honor,  the  hero  and 
the  saint,  the  powerful  and  the  good.  Out  of  this  one 
difference  it  would  not  be  difficult  to  develop  all  the 
moral  differences  which  distinguish  the  two  religions. 


444  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

The  hero  was  the  saint  of  ancient  worship,  the  saint 
is  the  hero  of  the  Christian  Church.  And  observe  that 
the  same  qualities  which  the  Greeks  adored  in  their 
heroes  and  demigods  were  also  embodied,  and  constitu- 
ted the  distinguishing  traits,  in  their  higher  divinities. 
The  Olympian  gods  were  deified  Force,  Beauty,  Cun- 
ning, Art. 

In  the  city  of  Rome,  in  the  early  period  of  the  Chris- 
tian era,  the  two  religions  encountered  each  other,  and 
contended  together  in  a  deadly  conflict,  which  resulted  in 
the  overthrow  of  the  Gentile  and  the  triumph  of  the 
Christian  worship,  of  the  Christian  ecclesiastical  power, 
also  of  many  Christian  ideas,  and  among  them  the 
recognition  of  the  Christian  type  of  character.  There 
remain,  as  monuments  of  this  conflict  and  this  triumph, 
some  ancient  temples,  once  consecrate  to  Gentile  divini- 
ties, which,  after  the  overthrow  of  polytheism,  were 
purified,  re-dedicated,  and  converted  into  Christian 
Churches,  and  which  still  survive  as  such.  The  most 
remarkable  of  these  is  the  great  pantheon  of  Agrippa, 
a  temple  erected  near  the  time  of  the  birth  of  Christ ; 
and  dedicated,  not  to  one  deity  only,  but  to  all  the 
divinities  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  faith.  Early  in 
the  seventh  century.  Pope  Boniface  IV.  new  consecra- 
ted this  splendid  fane,  cleared  it  of  the  symbols  of  poly- 
theism, replaced  the  ancient  statues  with  representations 
of  Christian  worthies,  and  devoted  it  to  the  Virgin 
j\Iary  and  all  the  martyrs.  It  still  exists  under  this 
designation,  the  most  perfect  monument  which  modern 
Rome  contains  of  ancient  architectural  art.  This  ven- 
erable temple  of  two  successive  ages  and  religions 
aflbrds,  in  the  contrast  of  its  present  symbols,  images, 


THE   MOKAL   IDExVL.  445 

and  decorations,  with  those  of  ancient  time,  an  apt  illus- 
tration of  the  chancre  which  relimon  has  wroiiixht  in  the 
moral  ideals  of  the  people  of  Rome.  A  writer  *  in 
the  interest  of  the  Catholic  Church,  defendino-  it  asrainst 
the  charge  of  Paganism,  supposes  an  ancient  Roman, 
who  had  known  this  temple  in  his  lifetime,  to  revisit  it 
in  its  present  form.  "The  first  thing  which  would  strike 
him,  instead  of  the  statue  of  Jupiter,  which  once  stood 
frontinof  the  entrance,  would  be  the  imasre  of  Christ 
crucified,  which  now  occupies  that  spot.  On  the  right 
hand,  the  picture  of  one  whom  men  are  stoning,  while 
he,  with  uplifted  eyes,  prays  for  their  forgiveness,  would 
rivet  his  attention ;  on  the  left,  the  modest  statue  of  a 
virgin  with  a  child  in  her  arms  would  invite  him  to  in- 
quiry. Then  he  would  see  the  monuments  of  men  whose 
clasped  or  crossed  hands  express  how  they  died  with 
unresisting  patience,  and  the  prayer  of  faith  in  their 
hearts.  When  he  should  inquire  into  the  character  of 
these  men,  he  would  learn  that  they  were  not  such  as  had 
been  crowned  with  worldly  success,  or  whose  achieve- 
ments had  won  for  them  the  applause  of  their  contempo- 
raries ;  not  victors  in  battle,  not  rulers  and  potentates, 
but  men  whose  highest  distinction  was  their  humility  and 
devotion,  —  men  who  were  persecuted  for  righteousness' 
sake ;  who  resisted  not  evil,  but  returned  blessings  for 
cursing,  and  submitted  themselves  to  a  painful  death 
rather  than  deny  their  faith."  —  "I  fancy,"  says  this 
writer,  "  it  would  be  no  difficult  task,  with  these  objects 
before  him,  to  expound  and  fully  develop  to  him  the 
Christian  faith ;  and  I  think  this  ancient  Koman  would 

*  The  late  Cardinal  Wiseman. 


446  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

get  the  idea  of  a  religion  immensely  different  from  that 
which  he  had  professed,  when  he  should  see  the  substitu- 
tion of  symbol  for  symbol,  —  the  cross  of  ignominy  with 
its  unresisting  victim  for  the  haughty  Thunderer,  the 
purest  of  virgins  for  the  goddess  of  lust,  the  forgiving 
Stephen  for  the  avengmg  god  of  war.  He  would  con- 
ceive the  idea  of  a  religion  of  the  meek  and  humble,  of 
the  persecuted  and  suffering,  of  the  merciful,  the  modest, 
and  devout." 

In  this  change  from  the  old  to  the  new,  from  Gentile 
to  Christian,  the  most  marked  and  remarkable  and 
indisputable  sign  of  spiritual  superiority  on  the  part  of 
the  Christian  is  the  irreco ignition,  the  sublime  disreofard 
by  the  Church,  of  all  adventitious,  external,  splendor 
and  renown,  of  all  pomp  of  circumstance,  of  all  conven- 
tional distinctions  of  rank  or  place,  of  all  physical 
endowments,  such  as  beauty  or  strength,  of  all  celebrity 
won  by  merely  animal  or  merely  secular  or  intellectual 
prowess  or  enterprise.  The  qualifications  for  ecclesias- 
tical saintship  have  been  precisely  those  qualities  which 
the  gospel  commends, — humility,  meekness,  patience. 
The  gospel  announced  itself  as  a  power  that  was  to 
"exalt  them  of  low  degree."  —  "Blessed  are  the  poor  in 
spirit,  for  theirs  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven,"  "He  that 
humbleth  himself  shall  be  exalted,"  is  its  spirit  and 
promise,  its  all-pervading  idea.  This  idea  and  promise 
the  Church  of  Rome  has  strikingly  and  nobly  fulfilled. 
Mistakes  she  may  have  made  in  regard  to  the  claims  of 
some  whom  she  canonized ;  but  one  mistake  she  did  not 
commit,  from  one  abuse  of  power  an  impartial  judgment 
must  pronounce  her  wholly  and  signally  free.  In  the 
canonization  of  her  worthies  there  has  been  no  respect 


THE   MOKAL   IDEAL.  447 

of  persons ;  no  regard  was  paid  to  earthly  rank  or 
glory.  However,  in  her  policy  toward  the  living,  she 
may  have  truckled  to  rank  and  power,  in  the  adminis- 
tration of  her  rites  and  duties  to  the  dead  she  has  known 
no  man  according  to  the  flesh,  and  recognized  no  claim 
but  holiness.  There  is  no  aristocracy  in  the  Christian 
calendar  but  the  aristocracy  of  good  works  and  moral 
desert.  There  is  no  Julius  there,  no  Augustus,  no 
Antinous,  much  less  a  Caligula.  If  any  crowned  heads 
are  there,  they  are  such  as  Olaf  and  Edward,  and 
Princess  Elizabeth.  If  any  nobles  are  there,  they  are 
such  as  St.  Theresa  and  St.  Charles.  It  is  creditable 
to  the  Church  of  Rome,  that  she  has  canonized  very  few 
sovereigns,  only  one  or  two  popes,  and  those  not  the 
most  distinguished,  nor  the  most  devoted  champions  of 
ecclesiastical  power ;  —  not  Hildebrand  nor  Innocent 
III. ,  although  one  would  say  the  temptation  to  canonize 
these  must  have  been  very  great.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  Church  has  freely  and  gladly  exalted  them  of  low 
degree,  and  raised  them  to  sainted  seats,  where,  after  due 
investigation,  the  claim  of  holiness  could  be  satisfactorily 
made  out.  In  that  calendar  there  are  worthies  whom 
some  of  their  votaries  would  not  have  deigned  to  meet, 
while  living,  on  equal  terms, — would  have  deemed  it 
beneath  their  dignity  to  consort  with  in  the  flesh,  whose 
contact  they  would  have  shunned,  to  speak  affably  to 
whom  would  have  seemed  condescension,  by  whose  side 
they  would  not  have  chosen  to  sit  in  public  places. 
Servants  are  there,  and  beggars  are  there,  and  negroes 
are  there ;  and  their  worshipful  and  aristocratic  con- 
temporaries are  not  there.  The  former  are  honored 
and  adored,  and  invoked  with  prayer :   the  latter  are 


448  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

forgotten  and  unknown.  In  this  exaltation  of  the  low, 
and  neglect  of  the  mighty,  —  where  lowliness  was 
coupled  with  holiness,  and  greatness  was  not,  —  the 
Church  has  done  nobly,  and  carried  out  the  idea  of 
Christ.  For  if  there  is  any  thing  which  Christianity 
honors,  it  is  humility ;  and,  if  there  is  any  thing  which 
God  hates,  it  is  exclusiveness  and  pride. 

Thus  much  it  seemed  fitting  and  right  to  say  in  vindi- 
cation and  commendation  of  the  ecclesiastical  type  of 
moral  excellence  as  represented  in  the  calendared  saints 
of  the  Church.  But  when,  from  the  positive  side  of  this 
type,  we  turn  to  the  negative,  we  perceive  a  certain  nar- 
rowness, a  one-sidedness,  which  renders  the  saint  of  the 
Church  of  Rome  not  altogether  satisfactory  to  the  liberal 
and  philosophic  mind.  We  are  struck  with  the  fact,  that 
the  heroes  of  the  calendar  are  all  Christians.  I  use  the 
word  in  the  technical  sense.  Those  whom  Rome  cano- 
nizes must  all  have  been  within  the  pale  of  the  Church ; 
since  the  rupture  of  the  Eastern  and  Latin  Churches, 
they  must  all  have  been  within  the  pale  of  the  Church  of 
Rome.  No  outsider,  no  ancient  Gentile,  no  heathen 
of  Christian  ages,  and,  not  only  so,  no  Protestant 
Christian,  can  be  in  that  calendar,  —  can  be  a  saint, 
however  pure  and  lowly  and  devout.  I  should  be  sorry 
to  believe  that  there  are  not  as  many  saints,  ay,  and  a 
great  many  more,  according  to  the  highest  Christian 
standard  of  excellence,  outside  of  that  calendar,  than  are 
in  it,  both  among  the  dead  and  among  the  living.  My 
calendar,  were  I  authorized  to  frame  one,  would  be  a 
great  deal  larger  than  that  of  Rome.  Not  to  speak  of 
ancient  worthies,  of  Socrates  and  Epictetus  and  Anto- 
ninus, there  are  numbers  in  our  own  age  who  by  every 


THE    MORAL   IDEAL.  449 

principle  of  Christian  right  should  be  in  it,  and  are  not-, 
men  and  women  among  the  departed,  to  whom,  were 
it  lawful  to  address  supplication  to  any  below  the 
Supreme,  I  would  certainly  as  soon  pray  as  to  any 
Augustine  or  Chrysostom,  ay !  or  the  blessed  Virgin 
herself.  The  Church  of  Eome  could  not  be  expected 
to- know  of  all  the  holy  without  her  own  pale;  but  some 
she  did  know,  and  should  have  recognized,  and  would 
have  recognized  and  canonized,  had  a  wise  and  liberal 
piety  guided  her  decisions  ;  had  she  duly  considered  the 
words  of  the  jNIaster,  "  Other  sheep  have  I  who  are  not 
of  this  fold  :  "  had  she  not  been  more-  influenced  bv 
ecclesiastical  exclusiveness  than  by  all  her  reverence  for 
piety  and  holiness.  Will  the  Church  be  more  scrupu- 
lous than  her  Lord?  She  knew  of  Gentiles  in  the  old 
world ;  she  has  laiown  of  heathen  and  Jews  in  the  new, 
in  whom  was  the  very  spirit  of  goodness  and  of  Christ, 
to  whom  nothino'  was  wantino;  but  the  accident  of 
Christian  baptism  —  a  mere  external,  physical  experi- 
ence, a  material  sign  —  to  constitute  them  as  true 
Christians  as  any  Avithin  the  pale.  These  are  not  only 
excluded  from  the  company  of  saints,  but  are  not 
even  salvable  according  to  the  Catholic  theory  of  sal- 
vation. 

The  Protestant  Church,  with  truer  sympathy  and 
broader  charity,  accepts  for  the  most  part  the  recognized 
saints  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  while  she  wisely  refrains 
from  establishing  any  canon  for  herself  of  either  Catho- 
lic or  Protestant  worthies.  But  the  private  heart  has  a 
canon  of  its  own,  independent  of  the  Church,  and  need- 
ing no  decree  of  ecclesiastical  councils  to  give  it  sanc- 
tion.     In  that  rubric  of  the  heart  are  written  many 

29 


450  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

names  unknown  to  Rome  and  unknown  to  the  world. 
How  many  men  of  pure  minds  and  spotless  lives, 
whose  daily  record  has  been  a  registry  of  good  deeds, 
and  whose  course  through  the  world  a  river  of  blessing  ! 
And,  oh !  how  many  women,  self-sacrificing,  unpre- 
tending, uncomplaining,  whose  ronly  art  was  loving- 
kindness,  in  whom  was  no  thought  that  did  not  turn  on 
others'  need  and  others'  weal,  who  liave  borne  with 
patience  and  unconquerable  faith  the  heavy  burden  of 
a  thankless  service  and  an  unblest  house,  —  the  very 
incarnation  of  the  charity  which  "hopeth  all  things, 
believeth  all  things,  endureth  all  things"  !  Calendar  or 
no  calendar,  our  faithful  rubric  shall  recognize  these  as 
booked  and  enrolled  in  that  sacred  host  whose  upper 
ranks  and  whose  earthly  platoons  "  but  one  communion 
make  ; "  fellows  and  heirs  in  the  peerage  of  holiness, 
"  partners  with  the  saints  in  light."  Our  highest  mood 
will  gratefully  canonize  all  such,  and  praise  the  All- 
giver  for  that  most  needful  and  divinest  blessing,  good 
men  and  good  women  in  every-day  life,  — the  saints  of 
the  workbench,  the  saints  of  the  office,  the  saints  of  the 
kitchen,  the  saints  of  the  needle,  the  nursery,  and 
the  hearth. 

I  said  that  the  Roman-Church  type  of  the  saint  was 
too  exclusive  on  its  negative  side.  I  must  also  add,  that 
it  seems  to  me  somewhat  narrow  on  the  positive ;  a 
little  too  contracted  in  its  moral  aspect.  Lowliness, 
purity,  abstemiousness,  devoutness,  which  constitute  the 
cliicf  ingredients  in  the  composition  of  the  calendar 
saint,  are  priceless  qualities,  no  doubt ;  still,  they  are 
not  the  only  virtues,  nor  the  sole  conditions  of  holiness. 
Sincerity,  frankness,  cordiality,  liberality,  cheerfulness, 


THE   MORAL   IDEAI..  451 

—  these  also  are  Christian  graces,  and  essential  consti- 
tuents of  human  excellence.  And  these  are  qualities 
which  the  Church  canon  makes  little  account  of;  which 
are  often  wanting,  or  not  apparent,  in  the  Church's 
saints.  The  consequence  is,  that  the  Church's  saints, 
save  here  and  there  a  Francis  of  Assisi,  a  Philip  Neri, 
and  a  Francis  Sales,  are  rather  objects  of  reverential 
wonder  than  of  cordial,  affectionate  sympathy,  or  enthu- 
siastic emotion.  I  fancy  the  image  conveyed  to  most 
minds  by  the  word  "  saint "  is  that  of  a  drooping,  ema- 
ciated, wobegone  figure,  of  sad  countenance,  "as  the 
hypocrites  are,"  or  perhaps  of  a  stern,  repulsive  look ; 
not  that  of  a  healthy,  eupeptic,  cheerful,  humane,  and 
genial  nature,  such  as  one  would  clioose  for  companion 
or  friend.  At  best,  it  is  an  image  of  rapt,  devout  looks, 
"  commercing  with  the  skies,"  as  of  one  who  has  no 
part  or  lot  in  things  below.  Nor  can  it  be  denied,  that 
the  saints  sometimes  have  been  men  of  narrow  minds 
and  narroAV  hearts,  of  limited  views  and  sympathies  ; 
formal,  unlovely,  severe, — men  in  whom  the  religious 
sentiment  has  had  a  morbid  and  unnatural  development, 
not  carrying  the  other  sentiments  along  with  it,  running 
to  formalism,  not  blossoming  into  a  large  humanity  and 
generous  expansion  of  the  heart,  but  contracting  the 
affections,  and  seeking  its  food  in  asceticism  instead  of 
charity.  Such  examples  have  made  the  saintly  char- 
acter suspicious  and  repulsive  to  men  of  the  world. 
The  world  will  tolerate  faults  in  its  heroes,  but  not  in 
its  saints.  Or,  if  there  be  fjiults,  they  must  be  such  as 
spring  from  over-softness,  not  from  defect  of  charity. 
No  character  is  more  repulsive  than  that  in  which  reli- 
gion is  divorced  from  humanity. 


452  EATION.iL   CHRISTIANITY. 

The  fact  is,  there  are  two  quite  opposite  theories  of 
moral  excellence  :  we  may  term  them  the  humane,  and 
the  ecclesiastical.  The  one  makes  2:oodness  a  natural 
growth  ;  the  other,  an  artificial  product.  The  former 
discerns  it  in  a  healthy  nature  healthily  developed, 
seconded  by  divine  grace :  the  latter  regards  it  as  the 
substitution,  by  divine  grace,  of  a  theological  and  eccle- 
siastical conscience  in  the  place  of  the  natural  heart. 
In  the  one  view,  grace  re-enforces  nature;  in  the  other, 
it  supersedes  nature.  According  to  one  conception, 
goodness  is  self-manifestation  ;  according  to  the  other,  it 
is  self-alienation,  —  manifestation  of  an  alien  power. 

In  the  fifth  century  of  the  Christian  era,  the  two 
theories,  represented  respectively  by  St.  Augustine  and 
Pelagius,  were  brought  into  sharp  collision,  and  debated 
in  a  council  of  the  Church.  The  Church  decided  for 
the  AuOTstinian  doctrine ;  the  humane  view  was  de- 
clared  a  heresy,  and  has  been  out  of  favor  ever  since 
with  the  Orthodox  sects.  But  when,  from  the  bar  of 
Orthodoxy,  we  appeal  to  the  common  sense  of  mankmd, 
that  judgment  is  reversed.  In  the  court  of  common 
sense,  true  goodness  is  a  natural  growth  :  the  more  of 
individuality,  the  more  of  nature  there  is  in  it,  the  more 
genuine.  Unless  the  original  nature  and  deepest  heart 
of  the  individual  are  expressed  in  it,  however  respect- 
able, and  however  virtuous  in  its  kind,  it  is  not  the 
highest  style  of  goodness.  It  may  be  a  good  substitute 
where  the  genuine  article  is  not  vouchsafed,  but  good 
only  as  an  artificial  product  is  good  in  the  absence  of 
the  natural.  Still  the  natural  is  better.  We  rejoice 
when  art  can  in  any  degree  supply  or  redeem  the  defi- 
ciency of  nature ;  but  we  rather  rejoice  in  nature.     A 


THE   MORAL   IDEAL.  453 

forced  goodness  is  better  than  none.  Nay,  tliere  may 
be  even  more  merit  in  it  than  in  natural  goodness, 
because  of  the  effort  it  costs.  But  there  is  not  the 
beauty  in  it  that  there  is  in  the  natural,  and  therefore 
not  the  attractiveness  and  life-giving  power.  There  is 
all  the  difference  between  them  that  there  is  in  literature 
between  a  work  of  genius,  the  gift  of  inspiration,  and  a 
work  elaborated  by  assiduous  toil,  —  the  same  that 
there  was  between  the  two  wives  of  the  patriarch  Jacob  : 
"Leah  was  tender-eyed,  but  Rachel  was  beautiful.'' 

It  is  seldom  that  canonical  holiness  is  found  in  com- 
bination with  an  opulent,  genial  nature ;  still  less,  Avith 
humor  and  love  of  fun.  But  the  possibility  of  such  a 
combination  is  shown  in  one  remarkable  example  at 
least,  in  which  the  saintly  character  appears  completely 
redeemed  from  that  ghostly  unreality  which  attaches  to 
most  of  its  calendared  representatives ;  an  ecclesiastic 
whose  goodness  was  not  of  the  ecclesiastical  type,  but 
thoroughly  and  richly  humane.  St.  Pliilip  Neri,  foun- 
der of  the  order  of  the  "  Oratory,"  was  a  man  of  ex- 
alted piety  and  boundless  beneficence,  —  a  man  whose 
lengthened  life  was  a  life-long  sacrifice,  a  pouring  forth 
of  himself  in  ecstatic  devotion  Godward,  and  in  cease- 
less charities  man  ward  ;  but  withal  so  entirely  natural, 
so  genial,  s<^  sparkling  with  exuberant  mirth,  so  con- 
stitutionally averse  from  all  cant  and  pharisaism, 
that  he  often  affronted  the  traditional  standard  of 
priestly  decorum  with  his  uncanonical  deportment,  his 
humorous  disregard  of  conventional  proprieties.  The 
oddest  freaks  are  recorded  of  him  ;  and,  while  he  figures 
as  a  saint  in  the  calendar,  he  lives  as  a  humorist  in  popu- 
lar tradition.     He  encouraged  the  desponding  penitent 


454  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

to  confess,  by  pretending  to  expect  something  worse  than 
the  fact.  ^'Is  that  aM?  Would  I  had  done  nothing 
worse  !  "  He  hated  nothing  so  much  as  the  reputation 
of  a  saint.  One  day,  in  the  house  of  the  Marchesa 
Rangoni,  the  Spanish  ambassadress  inquired  of  him, 
how  long  he  had  renounced  the  world.  He  replied 
that  he  was  not  conscious  of  having  renounced  the 
world  at  all,  and  soon  began  to  speak  of  a  jest-book  in 
his  possession,  and  to  recount  some  of  the  droll  things 
contained  in  it. 

At  the  request  of  his  friend,  Angelo  da  Bagnarea, 
he  called  on  a  nobleman  who  had  desired  liis  acquaint- 
ance, but  who  was  rather  scandalized  at  his  jocose 
manner,  and  afterward  confided  to  Angelo  that  he  had 
not  been  much  edified  by  the  interview.  Whereupon 
Angelo  requested  Philip  to  repeat  the  visit,  and  to  put 
on  a  graver  deportment.  "What  would  yon  have?" 
said  the  impracticable  devotee.  "You  want  me  to 
])lay  the  serious,  that  people  may  say,  'That  is  Father 
Philip,'  and  tell  fine  stories  about  me.  Depend  upon 
it,  if  I  i>'0  i\<X'<nn  I  shall  onlv  make  matters  worse."  He 
would  never  en2:ai>e  in  spiritual  conversation  with  dis- 
tinguished  strangers,  whom  curiosity  and  the  reputation 
of  his  piety  attracted  to  his  cell. 

At  times  a  humorous  fit  would  seize  l^im  in  public, 
and  tempt  him  to  practical  jokes.  Standing,  one  day, 
in  the  midst  of  a  crowd  at  the  door  of  a  church,  await- 
ing the  exhibition  of  some  relics,  his  eye  caught  the 
fiovvin<x  beard  of  a  soldier  of  the  Swiss  Guard.  Follow- 
ing  the  impulse  of  the  moment,  he  grasped  it  with  both 
hands,  and  began  to  stroke  it  with  droll  caresses,  much 
to  the  amazement  and  amusement  of  the  bystanders. 


THE   MORAL   IDEAL.  455 

He  was  often  known,  when  walking  the  streets,  to  take 
off  his  spectacles,  and  put  them  to  the  eyes  of  people 
who  passed.  He  would  dance  and  caper  in  the  public 
squares,  and  say  occasionally  to  lookers-on,  after  execut- 
ing some  extraordinary  feat  of  agility,  "  What  do  you 
think  of  that  ?"  He  was  much  delighted  on  hearinfr  some 
one  whisper  to  his  neighbor,  "  See  that  crazy  old  fool !  " 

As  an  instance  of  his  moral  independence  and  the 
deep  sincerity  of  his  nature,  it  is  related,  that,  when 
the  Sacred  College  with  mistaken  policy  attempted  to 
enforce  the  due  observance  of  the  rite  of  confession,  by 
posting  the  names  of  delinquents  in  that  kind,  Philip 
said,  "I  will  go,  and  read  the  list,  that  I  may  ascertain 
who  are  the  brave  men  who  will  rather  incur  such 
reproach  than  dishonor  themselves  and  blaspheme  God 
by  a  hypocritical  and  forced  compliance." 

Not  less  entertaining  than  the  pranks  recorded  of  him 
is  the  effort  of  his  ecclesiastical  biographers  to  qualify 
and  excuse  these  evidences  of  a  genuine  human  nature 
underlying  the  saintly  fame.  The  Church  could  not 
choose  but  canonize,  after  his  death,  a  man  of  such  tran- 
scendent and  well-established  sanctity ;  but  he  often 
scandalized  the  Church,  while  living,  by  the  freedom  of 
his  manners.  The  same  fear  of  scandal  is  evident  in 
most  of  the  memoirs  which  recount  his  life.  What  was 
pure,  unadulterated  fun  they  ascribe  to  excessive  humil- 
ity.*    So  fearful  was  he  of  being  too  highly  esteemed 


*  It  is  reckoned  as  penance  and  mortification  (per  mortificarsi) 
by  the  Italian  biographer  from  whom  most  of  these  anecdotes  are 
taken.  Vita  di  S.  Fihppo  Neri,  Fondatore,  &c.  Scritta  dal  P.  R.  Gia- 
como  Bacci.  Edizione  Terza.  Roma,  1831.  From  the  Protestant  side 
there  is  an  excellent  sketch  in  "  Herzog's  Real-Encyclopadie." 


456  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

that  he  was  willing  to  appear  "a  fool  for  Christ's  sake." 
The  "Acta  Sanctorum"  maintains  a  prudent  reserve 
on  the  subject ;  but  tradition,  and  the  annals  of  the 
brotherhood  which  he  established,  have  transmitted 
the  genuine  lineaments  of  one  of  the  truest  and  noblest 
spirits  that  have  ever  sprung  from  the  bosom  of  the 
Church. 

The  world  in  general  cares  less  for  piety  than  it  does 
for  force :  it  demands  the  strong  man  rather  than  the 
good.  The  types  of  character  known  respectively  as 
"  hero  "  and  "  saint "  represent,  not  only  different  sys- 
tems of  religion,  but  different  stages  of  moral  culture 
in  Christian  lands  and  times.  On  the  ordinary  level 
of  human  experience,  the  hero  is  the  more  popular 
character  of  the  two.  With  how  different  a  sound 
the  two  titles  strike  the  common  ear !  what  different 
feelings  they  awaken  in  the  breast !  The  one  attracts 
with  magnetic  power,  —  it  stirs  the  blood,  it  sets  the 
whole  nature  aglow :  the  other  looks  pale  and  cold, 
—  it  seems  something  spectral,  whose  commerce  and 
uses  are  not  of  this  world.  The  reason  is,  that  the 
former  appeals  to  the  animal  nature;  the  other,  to 
the  spiritual.  The  appeal  to  the  spiritual  leaves  men 
unmoved,  because  the  spiritual  is  undeveloped.  With 
the  heroic  we  can  all  sympathize  :  the  feelings  which  it 
touches  are  common  to  all.  We  cannot  all  sympathize 
with  the  saint  for  want  of  the  saintly  in  ourselves  :  we 
have  not  yet  attained  to  apprehend  him.  The  saint  will 
be  our  hero  when  we  reach  that  plane  of  moral  life  on 
which  he  stands  ;  and  the  heroes  of  our  present  idolatry 
will  then  no  longer  satisfy  our  more  advanced  sense  of 


THE   MORAL   IDEAL.  457 

the  true  and  the  c^ood.  We  outs^row  our  idols  with 
c^rowino-  insight :  the  models  of  our  childhood  are  not 
the  models  of  our  youth,  and  the  models  of  our  youth 
have  ceased  to  charm  our  riper  years.  In  literature  the 
authors  and  passages  that  filled  our  souls  at  one  period 
leave  us  unmoved  at  another.  The  tumid  phrase,  the 
stormy  sentiment,  the  coarse  ideals,  which  gratified  our 
inexperienced  judgment,  we  now  reject ;  and  have 
learned  to  prize  instead,  those  calmer,  chaster  models 
which  once  repelled.  Most  men  are  children  in  moral 
culture ;  their  tastes  are  crude,  their  judgment  green, 
their  idols  such  as  fit  and  please  the  undeveloped  mind, 
—  great  in  their  way,  eminent  in  their  kind ;  but  that 
way  how  imperfect,  that  kind  how  poor,  compared  with 
the  hio'her  models  of  the  soul  I  Advancin":  culture  dis- 
abuses  us  of  our  early  predilections,  exposes  tlie  inade- 
quacy of  our  early  ideals,  strips  our  idols  of  their 
fancied  perfections,  and  tears  them  to  pieces  before  our 
eyes.  We  outgrow  the  pagan  in  our  experience  ;  Her- 
cules gives  way  to  Christ, 

The  world's  heroes  are  not  unworthy  the  homage 
they  receive  on  their  own  plane.  Whatever  savors  of 
heroism  is  worthy  of  lionor.  All  great  and  shining 
qualities,  strength,  valor,  genius,  —  who  can  help 
admiring  these  !  I  rejoice  that  such  things  are  ;  I  re- 
joice that  there  is  a  power  in  man  to  appreciate  such. 
Still,  there  is  something  greater  tlian  these  ;  tliey  do  not 
exhaust  the  power  that  is  in  man.  The  piety  which 
dwells  in  the  lielghts  of  the  soul,  which  walks  and  works 
with  God  in  godlike  beneficence,  is  more  sublime  than 
the  valor  which  breasts  the  shock  of  armies,  than  the 
genius  which  walks  in  glory  among  the  stars-. 


458  RATIONAL   CHRISTIANITY. 

There  are  two  things  which  all  men  reverence  who 
are  capable  of  reverence, — strictly  speaking,  only  two. 
The  one  is  Beauty  ;  -the  other.  Power.  Whatever  is 
worshipped  and  loved  in  this  world  is  comprised  under 
these  two  heads.  Our  idea  of  God  and  all  possible 
excellence  is  resolvable  into  these.  Power  and  Beauty, 
—  man  is  so  constituted  that  he  must  reverence  these 
so  far  and  so  fast  as  he  can  apprehend  them.  And  so 
far  and  so  fast  as  human  culture  advances,  men  will  see 
that  Holiness  is  Beauty  ;  and  Goodness,  Power. 


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